In this episode we discuss faber-castell discontinuing the polychromos pastel stick range and what that means for our classes moving forward. We also talk about watercolour pencils and the comparisons between coloured pencils and stand alone watercolour. Lastly we talk about Colin's latest picture of a cat and how he used different branded pencils to keep a close colour harmony within the picture.

In this week's episode Colin talks about his latest landscape challenge with a lot of foliage and bridge as the main feature. We talk about the difference between these landscapes without people in and his other landscapes which usually feature people in.

In this episode Colin talks about the appeal of doing challenging subjects that wouldn't necessarily go on your wall. In his latest picture he deviates from the usual landscapes to try something different and more challenging. Hear how this went and learn the theory behind his choices within the painting. We also discuss using PanPastels for block filling colour and combining them with pastel pencils on both PastelMat and Ingres.

In this episode Colin helps a student with their choice of background. Having already used warm and cool greys, what colour could be put into this grey background? Colin offers his advice and updates us on his newest Shadow pictures and the thrill of overcoming challenges.

On this week's episode Colin shares his advice to blending on pastelmat using colour shapers and advice if you want to try and erase mistakes. Colin also talks about the challenges he's faced with his recent shadow portraits and also a new Tiger Cub picture he's done with a beautiful depth of field.

In this episode Colin talks about how he was able to 'erase' a tree in his latest coloured pencil picture using solvent and the other colours in the trees. We also talk about his latest Shadow pictures and what makes it some of the most challenging work he's done to date. Lastly, Colin offers his advice for putting white into black tiger stripes.

In this episode Colin talks about going back to coloured pencils and a new landscape he's been working on. In his new picture there are a lot of trees and so this gives Colin an opportunity to talk about creating trees with coloured pencils and more specifically how to separate them using light and dark.

In this episode Colin takes a couple of questions, both about using grey! We discuss when to use warm and cool greys in animal portraits. Colin also talks about a new portrait he's working on and how he's had to deviate from the reference picture to make it work.

In this episode Colin talks about his latest shadow picture of a leopard and describes his approach to repetitive parts of a picture. He also talks about his experience of turning this leopard into black and white and the stumbling blocks he came across.

In this episode we revisit a topic that we've touched upon in a few podcasts and that's how to get a bright white on the paper. It's a big topic and problem for a lot of our students so we thought we've cover it as extensively as we can in this episode. We also answer questions about Albrecht Durer pencils, using PastelMat for the first time and how to create realistic portraits.