For artists who want to deepen their landscape painting skills in soft pastel
A guided course with artist Valerie McKeehan, designed to help you see and paint nature with greater vibrancy, depth, and compositional harmony.
If you’re ready to go deeper, refine your approach, and bring more light and depth into your work…
Before This Course
After Magic of Soft Pastel
This Course Is Designed Especially For…
Valerie is especially known for her luminous skies and glowing sunsets. In this course, she shares the techniques she uses to capture light, atmosphere, and the subtle shifts in color that give landscapes their sense of depth and life.
Most beautiful landscape paintings aren’t about talent.
They’re about understanding three simple ideas:
Learn how to capture glowing skies, shifting sunlight, and the subtle color transitions that bring landscapes to life.
Discover how layers of color, soft edges, and value relationships create depth, air, and distance in your paintings.
Understand how to simplify nature into strong shapes that guide the viewer’s eye through your landscape.
This may just be the shift your paintings have been waiting for
Take your landscapes to a new level of depth, light, and compositional harmony.
Real paintings created using Valerie’s soft pastel landscape techniques.
“I’m getting over my fear of the blank page, perfectionism and embracing the gap!”
It is a thoughtfully guided soft pastel landscape course that strengthens your technique while empowering you to see and paint in a way that feels truly your own.
Ready to bring more light, depth, and atmosphere into your landscapes?
Choose the option that works best for you and start learning Valerie’s techniques for creating luminous landscapes, glowing skies, and paintings full of atmosphere.
A Sneak Peek Inside The Magic of Soft Pastel
A Clear, Repeatable Painting Process
How to Translate What You See Into What You Paint
Confident Use of Color and Value
Composition That Feels Balanced and Intentional
How to Evaluate and Refine Your Own Work
MODULE 1
Laying the Foundation
In this opening module, Valerie introduces the core principles that make landscapes work: value, color relationships, and how to simplify what you see in nature.
You’ll learn:
This week sets the groundwork that everything else builds on. Once you understand these fundamentals, painting becomes dramatically easier.
MODULE 2
Soft pastels are incredibly expressive, and in this module Valerie teaches you how to use mark-making to create movement, energy, and personality in your paintings.
You’ll discover:
Mark-making is the basis of developing your artistic voice and building a connection with the medium. By the end of this module, your paintings will already begin to feel more expressive and alive.
MODULE 3
Professional pastel artists almost never start with finished color. They start with an underpainting. In this module, Valerie teaches the techniques that give pastel landscapes depth, harmony, and atmosphere from the very beginning.
You’ll learn:
Once you understand this step, your paintings begin to feel far more sophisticated and cohesive.
MODULE 4
From Life to Painting
This is where many artists get stuck.
They can follow tutorials… but struggle when painting from their own photos.
In this module Valerie shows you how to translate a reference photo into a compelling painting.
You’ll learn:
This is the moment students start thinking like artists rather than simply following instructions.
MODULE 5
Composed
In this module Valerie teaches the secrets of composition so your paintings feel balanced, dynamic, and engaging.
You’ll discover:
Artists act as storytellers guiding the viewer on a visual journey through the piece.
This is where paintings begin to look truly professional.
MODULE 6
Polish & Finishing
Many artists struggle with one big question: When is a painting finished?
In this final module, Valerie teaches you how to refine, polish, and complete your work with confidence.
You’ll discover:
The course even includes a practical self-critique checklist to help you evaluate composition, lighting, values, and mark-making in your work.
By the end of this module, you won’t just know how to start paintings. You’ll know how to finish them beautifully.
What You’ll Get Inside The Magic of Soft Pastel When You Join Today
One-Time $597
or 6 monthly payments of $129
“I can not begin to say enough about how Valerie has helped me in my soft pastel journey! From understanding the basics to even now as I dig even deeper into them, she has been a huge help and wonderful teacher.” – Jess
Valerie is as much life to the soul as honey is healing to the body, she’s raw and sweet, vulnerable and kind, and she creates a space to make all kinds of masterpieces and mistakes alike. Always chasing joy, beauty and creativity, she handles technique incredibly well for the advanced, and simplifies it perfectly for the beginner. There’s nothing that’s off the table when Valerie is teaching, which is truly a rare gem of a gift among the arts community.
Sophia
I started out knowing little to almost nothing about this medium. Thanks to her tips and suggestions, I’m beginning to feel more confident with my pastels. I’m better understanding how to take a one dimension painting and turn it into something with depth and value – and this is SO exciting to me. My goal has been to create the nostalgic landscapes from my childhood, and now with Valerie’s help, I feel like I can finally achieve that!
Jessica
By Joining Today, You’ll Also Unlock These Special Bonuses
An intimate invitation to clear away fear, welcome play, and create simple creative rituals that root you in joy and belonging.
Continue your growth inside Valerie’s creative community with live calls, fresh inspiration, and ongoing support as you deepen your practice.
A practical guide to Valerie’s favorite tools, materials, and foundational methods so you feel confident in your supplies and setup.
Learn how to properly protect, package, and ship your soft pastel artwork so it arrives safely and professionally.
An additional guided landscape study focused on painting a vibrant sunset scene in soft pastel.
A practical reference guide to help you understand and choose cohesive color combinations with confidence.
A curated playlist designed to support focus, flow, and creative immersion while you paint.
A motivating collection of music to re-energize your creative sessions when momentum dips.
A structured, easy-to-follow framework you can return to whenever you begin a new landscape.
And so much more…
All available in The Magic of Soft Pastel now
“I look at the world with new eyes, seeing shapes and colors and layers and textures I never quite fully noticed before.”
The past 6 weeks in Valerie’s course have made an impact on me, not only as an artist- but as a human being too. I can’t count how many times I hesitated in life to do something or as an artist to create something because I was unsure or lacked self love/confidence. My time in the Magic of Soft Pastel course has helped me reconnect with my forgotten child-like curiosity and I have seen myself approach my blank canvas with wonder, confidence and anticipation to let the magic within me- the magic that Valerie reminded us we are- just flow.
Samantha
I really loved being a part of the Magic of Soft Pastel Fall Session. As a business owner, wife, and mom, I really needed to slow down and do something for myself. I’ve wanted to make art a part of my routine again, and Valerie has inspired me to do this! I’ve noticed that I’ve been seeing the world a little different…feeling more present and noticing the details around me. This experience has been transformative, calmed my anxiety a bit, and brought me lots of joy.
Breanne
If you feel ready to go deeper with your soft pastel landscapes, this course is for you.
It is for the artist who wants more clarity in their process, more intention in their layers, and more confidence in their finished work.
You do not need to be perfect. You do not need to be classically trained.
You simply need a desire to grow.
Inside this course, I will guide you through the techniques and perspective that changed the way I see light, nature, and atmosphere, so you can experience that same shift in your own work.
I cannot wait to paint alongside you.
If you feel ready to go deeper with your soft pastel landscapes, this course is for you.
It is for the artist who wants more clarity in their process, more intention in their layers, and more confidence in their finished work.
You do not need to be perfect. You do not need to be classically trained.
You simply need a desire to grow.
Inside this course, I will guide you through the techniques and perspective that changed the way I see light, nature, and atmosphere, so you can experience that same shift in your own work.
I cannot wait to paint alongside you.
One-Time $597
or 6 monthly payments of $129
“Enrolling in this course was my best artistic decision.”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Magic of Soft Pastel is designed for artists who are ready to go deeper.
If you already understand basic art concepts like color, value, and composition and want to refine your technique in soft pastel, this course will serve you well.
If you are completely new to art or soft pastel, Valerie’s beginner course may be a better starting point.
You can download the course supply list here.
You do not need to have everything on the list to get a ton of out of the course! By all means use what you have. That said, I do think professional art supplies make a big difference. I built the supply list to make it simple so that you could have exactly what I’ll be using throughout the course.
Yes it can! Many artists come from watercolor, acrylic, or oil backgrounds. Especially if your goal is to capture landscapes.
There are a lot of fundamentals to landscape paintings: hue, value, aerial perspective, composition, etc. that will translate to any medium. We will be covering all of that.
This program has more than 50 hours of video teaching, Q&As, critiques, tutorials and more.
Free tutorials often focus on isolated techniques.
This is a comprehensive soft pastel landscape course built around a clear, guided process so you understand how each layer, decision, and adjustment supports the whole painting.
The course includes critique examples and troubleshooting instruction so you learn how to evaluate and refine your own paintings. For live feedback and ongoing support, students can continue inside Magic Makers.
