Instructor Spotlight

APRIL 2025

If you’re lucky enough to take a class with Mike Barret Kolasinski you’ll understand why each class he offers at OPAL is full, often with repeat students eager to keep exploring pastels with Mike’s guidance.

After spending nearly two decades as a free-lance illustrator and designer, Mike Barret Kolasinski decided to leave the commercial field and enter the world of fine art to pursue his real passion - a visual commitment to illuminating and protecting the wilds of untamed nature.  He captures his love of the landscape and the drama of untouched nature without any indication of human impact by finding the lasting beauty in the passing mundane and seeking the eternal radiance in a damaged world.  This became his full-time obsession in the mid 1990s and quickly led to international recognition as a pastelist with his self-described WildScapes. 

Mike is a nationally recognized pastelist. An award winning artist, he is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, has achieved Master Circle status with the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS), a Master Circle Member of the PaintAmerica Association, and a Master and co-founding Board Member of the Chicago Pastel Painters.

His work, included in many public and private collections, has won numerous awards, including the first Maggie Price Award of Excellence at the Pastel World 2013, 22nd Juried Exhibition, International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS); the 2012 America’s Parks Through the Beauty of Art Top 100 and the Gold Medal Award in the 2008 Bosque Art Classic to name just a few.

Using the medium of soft pastel to achieve an understanding of the philosophy of nature as a whole and integral entity of ourselves. Spend two hours once a week by having fun experiencing, experimenting, and exploring the glowing luminosity of the medium of soft pastel.  Learn to create passionate pastel paintings by using pure pigment to understand the techniques on how to handle the medium with its incredibly forgiving nature.  His class runs continuously and is open to all skill levels.
Take a class with Mike