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.