Lydia Potoff—
Pastel Landscapes Workshop
Note: Refunds minus the credit card transaction fee are available up to four weeks before the beginning of the workshop. After that, the student must find a replacement and negotiate payment with the replacement. If you need to cancel, contact us. The team may be able to help find a replacement. Please see the LAA Cancellation and Refund Policy.
LAA Members: Use your member code during check-out for a discounted price. The member code can be found in your membership confirmation email and any LAA newsletter.
Pastel Landscapes:
Creating Mood and Atmosphere
July 18, 2026 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Instructor: Lydia Potoff
LOUISVILLE ART CENTER
801 Grant Ave, Louisville, CO 80027
Member $55
Non-member $85
Discover how to bring mood, depth, and atmosphere into your landscape paintings in this one-day pastel workshop. We’ll explore how color, value, and mark-making work together to evoke mood—whether it’s the quiet glow of early morning, an approaching storm, or the calm of an open horizon.
We’ll begin with soft pastels and an alcohol wash, a dynamic underpainting technique that unifies color and composition, and establishes strong value relationships. From there, we’ll build layers of soft pastel over the dried wash, learning how to respond to what emerges rather than over-controlling the painting.
You’ll gain confidence in:
- Creating atmospheric depth using value and color temperature
- Letting go of detail to strengthen mood and feeling
- Using an alcohol wash to energize and simplify your composition
- Layering soft pastels for richness, contrast, and expression
This workshop is suitable for beginner to intermediate pastel artists and anyone curious about loosening up their process while creating expressive, evocative landscapes. Expect demonstrations, guided practice, and individual feedback throughout the day.
Come ready to experiment take risks and have fun!
Lydia Potoff
Working in both oil and pastel, Lydia Pottoff creates impressionistic landscapes and figurative works that focus on the interplay of light and color in the natural world. She paints both in the studio and ‘en plein air’. Painting outside on location allows her to capture that sense of place and wonder that only comes with direct observation.
Lydia has a Bachelor of Arts in both graphic design and fine art from Metropolitan State University and worked as a designer and art director, finally becoming a partner in a Colorado creative agency for twenty-five years. A desire to create a more personal vision led her back to fine art and she has pursued her passion in painting, in both plein air and studio work since 2001. The late Elizabeth Mowrey, author and Master Pastelist from the Pastel Society of America, continues to influence both her approach and attitude toward painting nature and capturing the magic within.
Lydia is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of Colorado and a member of the Oil Painters of America. Her award-winning pastel work has been recognized nationally, most recently when her piece Along Dallas Divided was selected as one of ten artists in the Artist Network Over 60 Competition. She enjoys teaching pastel classes and workshops and draws ongoing inspiration from her travels with her husband, Tony, trekking, biking, and kayaking in remote locations around the world.
When not traveling, they tend a small “farmette” near Lyons, where they grow vegetables and flowers and share their days with chickens, ducks, bees, cats, and their mini Australian Shepherds.Her work is held in private collections throughout the U.S.
Some of Lydia’s work:
MATERIALS:
If you have questions about materials, please fill out the contact form and specify Workshops as the topic. Someone on the workshop team will respond.
Below is a list of supplies for the class. Most of these supplies can be purchased at Meiningers or Guirys but typically pastels have to be purchased online from Dakota Pastels, Guirys, Terry Ludwig or JerrysArtarama in sets. Meiningers in Denver has a fairly large selection of open stock (single) pastels.
- A small table top easel or a standing easel.
- A 16 X 20 foam core backing board. (I prefer black.)
- A portable light if you have it. I use a clip on easel light. (available from Amazon- Vekkia 64 Led Rechargeable Music Stand Light – Folding Clip On Piano Lamp, Portable Professional with 5 Brightness×3 Color)
- Extension cords if you have any plug ins.
- Set of soft pastels (as many as you have). I would recommend Sennelier for the underpainting.
- An assortment of pastels to apply over the underpainting. I use Terry Ludwig, Senneiller, Girault, Rowney and Schminke.) It is important to have a range of light and dark values.
- The Senneiller can be challenging since they have larger ends due to the mold process. These ends need to be sanded off. I can show you how to do that. A good starter set is the basic landscape set on Terry Ludwig.
- I recommend that you remove all wrappers and organize your pastels by color and value. This will save time in the workshop and as you will find having an organized palette will help keep your colors vibrant and clean.
- As with any medium good quality materials are important. Alain Picard, a master pastelist is a great resource for information and painting tips. I suggest you go to his site and download his PDF of pastel types. You have to sign up for his email list first.
- Some hard pastels – Creta Color is a good brand.
- Tape (no colored tape). I prefer black artists tape or just plain masking.
- A small sketchbook, pencil and eraser
- 3 markers 20%, 50%, 90% (Blick Studio Markers Gray set of 6)
- Paper Towels
- 2 Cheap Brushes -synthetic brushes, no natural bristle – flats in 1/2”, 3/4” or 1”sizes recommended. I use Silverwhites since they are a little softer.
- A few pastel pencils, white, gray, medium brown, dark brown, brick, gray purple, light blue and light yellow. I use Conte and Schwan Stabilo, Carb Othello.
- I will supply photos to work from or you can bring photos that YOU have taken to use as reference. I typically paint from my ipad since the quality of the digital images are better than prints. If you bring your own photos, please pick them for the subject matter that we are studying. (I will provide a reference photo prior to the workshop so that you can see the subject.)
- Several 8 X 10 Uart sheets or similar neutral sanded paper. I like to mount mine on Crescent Perfect Mount (both available from Dick Blick). Uart now comes with a sticky back (available on Dakota Pastels), so you can just mount directly on foam core or board
- You can bring all your own paper/board or I can supply the below items for a $10 material Fee:
- Artist tape, liquid glove or gloves
- 8 X 10 mounted pastel paper on board –
- alcohol and small cups for underpainting ,
- foam brushes, blending stumps and templates for your thumbnail sketches.
- Aluminum foil to make a catch tray at the bottom of your easel.
Pastel Landscapes:
Creating Mood and Atmosphere
July 18, 2026 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Instructor: Lydia Potoff
LAA Members: To get the discounted price, use your member code during check-out. The Member Code can be found in your membership confirmation email and any LAA Newsletter.
Questions? Go to the Contact Us form and be sure to specify this workshop with your question.