A pure-pigment medium, pastels have been used by painters for centuries for the powerful and evocative colour they can produce. Professional artist and experienced teacher Mark Leach uses pastel to translate beautiful landscapes into striking, minimalist paintings with simple form and strong blocks of colour, while still retaining a sense of location and place. His simple techniques demonstrate how to move away from realism and towards using abstract painting to express mood and feeling. The book includes: Introduction: beyond realism, balancing the emotional and physical; Composing and Developing Images: composing a non-realistic image, feeling and passion, light, form and texture, seeing colour, and the journey to abstraction; The Joy of Colour: understanding the colour wheel, colour moods, colour palettes and mixes; Subjects to Paint: still life, landscapes, figurative painting, and colour on water; The Art of Pastels: my studio, pastels, pure pigment, composition, sketching from life and landscape, painting from sketchbooks and photographs, light and tone, mediums and supports for pastels, and pastel painting techniques.

About the Author

Mark Leach is a professional artist who has painted landscapes for over 20 years and has won many major awards for his work. His paintings are exhibited in London, the UK and Europe, and are held in both private and corporate collections worldwide. He contributes to and has been featured in numerous art magazines, is a member of the Federation of British Artists and is Honorary Treasurer of the Pastel Society. Mark is from near Rye, Sussex. Angie Patchell has been editing and creating art books and magazines for over 15 years. In 1995 she founded emergingART, a database of talented artists, which is now an online gallery.