Painting with pastels

I've been teaching a pastel class and loving every minute of it. We are working on Colorfix sanded paper which I also use with colored pencils. It's a beautiful rough surface and both mediums go down easily on it. Below is a mountain image I got from Paintmyphoto.com that we are working on. I had the students draw in the main shapes and dark areas in soft vine charcoal. They are amazed the pastel goes right over it without becoming muddy. It is kind of magical! Then they add the basic background shapes in color. We are use both soft and hard pastels. Last step is adding in small details and touchup around the sky and mountain edges.

We'll I'm on my Ipad and blogger won't allow me to add photos from my photos or iPhoto so I'll add them when I get home.