"Shallows" 24x30 oil on linen

I am thrilled to share that my painting "Shallows" was awarded 3rd Place Overall in the October/November Competition of PleinAir Salon. I have already posted the painting in my blog, but here it is again.

More for Southeastern Wildlife Expo

During the break, I have been working steadily on paintings for the Southeastern Wildlife Expo as well as a few other events. I don't think I will ever get bored, so much to do. In the middle of all of this I have to find time to decorate my house. I just looked at facebook where I saw a friends beautiful decorations.....and she works hard like I do! Where do people get the time? Anyway, I do have a few more paintings that I am slowly getting ready for SEWE. Having a lot of fun doing this by the way and am trying some new approaches that might stick.

Recent Work

Incoming 8x12 oil on linen

I am getting ready for the 2014 Southeastern Wildlife Expo in Charleston and am having fun working on these images. Here are a couple that I have completed recently.

Shallows 24x30 oil on linen

Opening Night at Frameworks Gallery "Along the Water's Edge"

I was part of the fall exhibit at Frameworks Gallery in Marietta last night with 3 other artists. Frameworks did their usual wonderful job of organizing and designing the show. It is always fun to see old friends and meet some new ones there. I am thrilled to say that I made several sales and hope that more of my paintings will find good homes soon. Thank you to Frameworks, students and fellow art lovers who make it possible for me to continue to follow my passion. Please take time to go see the show which will be up for the next couple of weeks.

Workshop Week

Last week I was lucky enough to participate in a workshop with Don Demers at The Quinlan Visual Art Center in Gainesville, GA. Don doesn't teach many workshops and came to Georgia at the request of Anne B Hill. It was a great week, with mostly beautiful weather, a little cold and windy a couple of days, but for the most part great. Don is a wonderful painter and a generous instructor both with his knowledge and his technical expertise. I came from the workshop with so much information to keep in my brain. I found myself focusing on slowing down and paying close attention to drawing, value and color during the workshop. I know that I will be doing lots more thumbnail sketches from now on. Suprise, suprise, they really do help with design and a general plan of action. One day we were at a marina on the lake and the light was brilliant. The photos above are of the scene and my beginning lay-in of my painting. I did manage to work a good bit on the painting, but lost the light and wound up chasing it. The painting remains unfinished, but the memory of the light and my process lingers for another days painting.

Paint the Parks Competition

Schoodic Rocks

Sunset Waves

I am so excited to have these two paintings accepted into the Paint the Parks Competition at the Coutts Museum for 2013. These paintings are from my stay as Artist in Residence in Acadia National Park in 2012. Painting around the park for a couple of weeks really gave me a feel of the place and has enhanced my studio work from the photos and plein air studies. The complete list of participating artists and winners are on the Paint the Parks website.

Opening at Frameworks Gallery in Marietta, November 7

I have been busy getting ready for my fall opening with Frameworks Gallery in Marietta, GA. I will be exhibiting paintings with 3 other artists in this show titled "Along the Waters Edge". Several of my paintings from my recent exhibit at Quinlan in Gainesville will be on display as well as many new ones. Please come see me at Frameworks Gallery on November 7. Visit www.frameworksgallery.com for more information on the opening. Pictured here are two of my new paintings for the show.



Chaos at The Edge

 

Chamberlin At Dawn



Day 3 at the workshop

Demo Day 2

Here are a few photos of my class painting. Today was the most beautiful fall day and the temperature was perfect. My students all had a great day of painting. Highlands has some lovely painting locations. I found this place when I needed a place to turn around. I have been down some questionable roads most of which are not the best, but this spot was a gem. A nice couple passed by and invited us to paint at their house. We will be going there on Friday.

Highlands pastel workshop

37 minute demo

The Lunch Bunch

I am in Highlands, NC this week teaching a pastel workshop at The Bascom. The weather began as gray and rainy, so I planned my demo inside this morning. The day just changed drastically, became beautiful and will stay that way all week. How lucky is that for a plein air workshop? I started my students doing value studies with a limit of 3 values to warm up and see how to simplify before going outside where color is exploding. Everything is full of fall color and the need to simplify is important. They did some beautiful things with their studies. Tomorrow we will be going outside and applying the same ideas to the fall landscape. My demo today was another of my 37 minute studies with an emphasis on starting with simple values. We had lunch together outside in the most gorgeous weather ever! My students are the BEST!

Class Demos

I returned to my class at Chastain Park this week on Wednesday and wondered why I told them before I left that I would demo in each class. I teach both oils and pastels and to be fair, I needed to devote equal time to each medium. So, that meant a demo in each medium on Wednesday. My gear had not come back from Maine, so I was scrambling to gather equipment and paint, pastels and paper to carry in for the demo. By the time I arrived at class, I was scattered to say the least. My pastellists are in my afternoon class, so I reserved that demo for the afternoon. I did a large demo in oil for the morning class which is still in progress. I have taken pictures of it in the mid process state and I will take final pictures when I complete it and will post the results here. The painting pictured here is my demo in pastel that I did in the afternoon class. I am happy with the results, which is not always the case. This was done on gray Sennelier pastel card and it went very quickly. I really loved working on the surface which lends itself to soft edges. I try to get my students to use hard pastels in the beginning to avoid filling the tooth of the paper, but I began with soft pastels and the effect was what I wanted in the finished product.

Back to 37 minute studies



Loganberry Shed



Lanier Sails

 Back home again and I am picking up where I left things with my 37 minute studies. Before I left, I did a few that I did not have time to photograph. Admittedly, one of them, Loganberry Shed is a bit longer than 37 minutes, but no longer than an hour and a few minutes. The point of this exercise is to keep things simple and I think I went farther than I needed to on it. The other one is a plein air painting I did just before I left at Lake Lanier on a very gray and windy day. It truly is a 37 minute or less painting and I like the air in the painting....for me that is what plein air is about and I learned to move quickly on this and left a lot of things out. Carried on to a larger painting, there would be many improvements that could be made, but for now, this one is what I got out of the day. I have a few in my studio if I can get them photographed that are not great, but this exercise includes the dogs.

Workshop information

Shrimphouse at East Point
Plein Air Demo

Hi. The image above is one of my demos from my workshop in Apalachicola, FL in 2013. I am going back in 2014 and would love to have you come along. The dates are March 3 - 5 2014. The workshop is for any medium, but my focus is oil and pastel. I work with different levels of students, trying to work with each student at his or her level. We go to several different locations with demos at each. We have a great time of painting and sharing information. The price of the workshop is $335.00 for the 3 days. Please contact me to register or if you have questions. You can reach me at debduster@bellsouth.net or give me a call at 770-887-8877.

37 minute studies

I am in the process of simplifying my work and decided that setting a timer on myself is the best way to keep my focus on bigger shapes and fewer values in order to complete my idea in 37 minutes.  I chose 37 minutes because it is an odd number and I recently read a newsletter by Robert Genn talking about using 37 strokes to complete a painting.  For now, 37 minutes is my goal and it is really making a difference.  I have timed myself in the past to stop the noodling with a painting, but this time, I find that it is working better.  When I began I promised myself that I would do this every day, no matter what was going on.  I have been faithful for the most part, but as always life interferes and I have missed a few days.  I plan to post these paintings here, the good, the bad and the ugly, for you to view and make up your own mind about this project.  I started this a couple of weeks ago and have missed a few days in between.  I am counting sketches from sketch group as well as small oil or pastel studies on location or in the studio.  Ideally, it would be best to do them from life, but using photos is part of what I do.  I have challenged my class to do these every day and we are going to share and discuss them at least twice a month in class.  The image here is my first day, which I was thrilled with, it is a small oil 9x12 which is a large as I want to go in oil.