“I have totally fallen in love with your beautiful seemingly free, yet carefully considered, colourful style of painting.
I have always loved watercolor and recently coloured pencil, particularly love paining botanicals, but have always tried to break away from the minute detail I feel compelled to keep adding. I just get dug in and work finer and finer detail!!
I really just stumbled on your work on Utube, and was immediately taken.
You have inspired me to throw myself into pastel with a passion! I cannot wait to stand at my easel every day now, throwing caution to the wind and experimenting and learning from your easy and entertaining instruction.
I can already see a progression in my work. My colour choices are bolder. I’m reaching for colours that I wouldn’t have imagined pricing up in the past.
Thank you so much Marla,
(and the extra push from your support team Chris)
for jarring me out of my deep deep rut!!!!
I’m having a ball! Feeling pretty chuffed with myself”

I want you to know I watch your lessons, just to give my mind a break and get juiced up for creativity. I find it very soothing, and remarkable to watch your process. It is very well done and inspiring.

“I’m Bill Hansen, a retired health care worker living in Ithaca NY, USA.

After trying a few other online learning approaches to pastel painting, I was about to give up on pastels, thinking that I was not going to be able to learn how to use them. Marla’s “”PastelPaintingLessons”” changed all that. It really is different from all the other online pastel learning experiences – clearer, more complete, and much better presented. It’s an evolving, growing course, beautifully designed. I’m fascinated by Marla’s use of colors and her semi-impressionistic style. I’m grateful for her encouragement a relatively free technique, and hersupport for independent work at each level of learning. Most helpful for me are the real-time “”watch and paint”” lessons, in which the student can see what Marla is doing in real time, while she explains her process in clear voice-over.

No commentary would be complete without mentioning the excellent, professional design of the web site, and the customer support, which is among the best I’ve experienced in an online learning environment.”

My name is Linda Wright and i live on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have been following Marla’s teaching and painting for a few years now and have to say that i find her such a huge inspiration. Having experienced her teaching both from her online Pastel Painting Lessons and in person, I find her to be so very enthusiastic and committed to imparting her amazing wealth of experience and wisdom. Marla has the exceptional gift of not only being a fabulous artist, but can demonstrate and instruct with such ease and dedication. I have been inspired so many times, and on so many levels, as i watch her teaching methods, feeling encouraged to go further and trying some new ways of working with pastels. She is also such a lovely and warm woman, I had the pleasure of hosting a 3 day workshop here a few years ago, and she was generous, patient, and dedicated. She was also most gracious when some aspects of the workshop that i had organized weren’t as good as they could have been. Marla brings a clarity to her teaching that i value highly.