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Having written elsewhere that I fuss around in PhotoShop almost daily to help get readings on the various ways I might proceed with a work in progress, I didn't mean to discourage development of the often skillfully executed drawings and paintings done with computer assistance. I'm not giving up my PhotoShop and CorelDRAW programs and I'm not suggesting that anyone else should.
To be sure, there are things that can be said about lighting, shadows, shapes, line and edges in a digital image, but my guess is that the way to discover how pastels "behave" in the course of attempting to capture those effects is to get some in your hands and begin pushing them around, with this paper and that, on one backing sheet or eight. It would seem, too, instructive in matters of lighting and edges and composition to learn by studying how the Daniel Greenes and Chris Sapers and Wendy Caporales handled those elements, while actually working in that medium. Going to the Stroke of Genius homepage and clicking on "Pastel" will produce dozens of masterly examples of all elements that go into the "construction" of such a piece. And then, to learn how to manipulate the medium, one has to pick up a real pastel stick and start painting. (I originally typed "paining", which perhaps more accurately describes my first efforts with this medium.)
Incidentally, the reference to "Chris Sapers" was merely literary. There is only one Chris Saper.
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