My grade 9 students investigated pastel techniques and created a final composition based on their field studies trip in Japan, where they were required to consider how to implement colour, various pastel techniques and methods into a well balanced and attractive landscape composition. Students were given the choice of soft or oil pastel. You can view the work via Flickr here. You can also view the week by week breakdown of what was done in class here if interested. One thing that I did do differently this year was to assign students into groups to conduct their own research on pastel techniques. Here is also an example of a student reflection.

My grade 9 Art Foundation class just finished their unit on pastels, which covers charcoal, soft pastel and oil pastel in about 10 eighty minute lessons. For their summative piece, students were asked to implement various pastel techniques and methods into a landscape composition that they created from photographs from their field studies trip. You can view the week by week breakdown of what we did in class here. Photos are embedded below.