Pastel Landscapes Flex Class ELM Part 1: By the Painting Panda

Welcome to the Painting Panda Classroom: Chalk and Oil Pastel Landscapes for Elementary aged children.

This class is my way of helping those who want my one-time, camps, and ongoing classes that I can't fit into my schedule by themselves.  I love these mediums for drawing, because they are so similar to charcoal, crayons, soft core colored pencils: in that they blend so smoothly, so richly, and allow an immense amount of beautiful textures, and layers.  Each week we'll draw a new landscape.  I will be offering a variety of different techniques, tips and tricks for keeping clean, how to keep chalk on your paper, and how household items can give you some cool boosts for blending and textures.  Let's learn a little bit about both these pastels before we go over more details about our class, so you know what to expect a bit more.

Chalk pastels are generally rectangular in shape, that look like square hard chalk (but are chalk). Do not buy side walk chalk as the techniques will not work for what I have planned.  *Chalk pastels create a lot of dust, which can affect allergies, which is why you see me use both Chalk and Oil pastels, because chalk dust allergies are in my own household.

Oil pastels are cylinder in shape, that look like regular crayons, without the pointy tips (but are not crayons).  Do not buy crayons as the techniques will not work for what I have planned, crayons are too waxy.  There are different qualities of oil pastels.  I have a specific quality I need to have be bought so that your art will look like mine, otherwise the cheaper less quality oil pastels will be worse than crayons.

We'll focus on line techniques, learn layering with both types of pastels, and learn blending techniques: with brushes, fingers, Q-tips.  I'll share my chalk protection technique: learning how to keep our chalk pastels from rubbing off the paper when we're done with our projects.  
Let's see what landscapes we'll be drawing together: this class we'll focus on the 4 Seasons
Week 1: Spring Field with flowers
Week 2: Summer Island Sunset
Week 3: Fall Fire Tree
Week 4: Winter Forest Cabin

Each Monday no later than 5pm EST, I'll post the videos for the art projects, instructions, and techniques.  On Wednesdays I'll post one of the following each week: tip videos, interactive classrooms, games, and interaction check points for peers to communicate together, and to communicate with me. Plus on Tuesdays and Thursdays I check on you to see how things are going, do a Q&A session and get updates on the art projects.  On Fridays it is Art Submission day/ Art Show and Tell, where all students are required to share their art so I can give my comments, tips, and suggestions for getting better, where classmates will be able to comment on each other's works of art and tell us about the different types of landscapes they've experienced during different seasons.  This is a vital part of our class experience, and encourage all students to participate.

Also, students will be able to communicate with each other in the classroom.   However, flex classes are more fun when students are willing to interact with each other and the teacher as often as possible.  If your child needs more time to work on projects, please contact me to work something out.  Thanks