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. 

Gray Day Beauty

                                           Pasture Trees  11x14 oil on linen board plein air

This is a recent plein air painting done on a day that was supposed to be a beautiful, sunny day.  I love gray days because color is strong and light is the same for longer amounts of time.  I had problems with the color of the road, finally deciding that it was a value problem and lightened it to resolve.  The dark shapes of the trees against the top of the hill and the gray sky helped set up this simple composition. 

Class Demo

One of my students was kind enough to take these photos of my Fall Class demo in progress.  This was done on an 18x24 linen canvas and is still a work in progress.  It helps seeing the stages in my process of the painting and where I can change or improve how I paint.  This painting is still a work in progress, and I will be taking it back to class to complete with our Winter group.  I will post the completed painting when finished.