Artist & Display Pastel Class #5 & misc notes

Last class with Pam yesterday. We learned about oil pastels which are oil paint in a stick form. One brand is craypas. There are different grades, the cheaper student grades have a different binder to pigment ratio then the "artist" grades which use a higher quality of pigment. Also was introduced to Strathmore's Acrylic textured linen surface paper. Very durable. Can scrape on it and really work it. We painted 3 cups with saucers stacked vertically on 2 books.

You can work dark to light, layering in to reveal canvas under neath. A plastic card or palette knive can be used to scrape off thick layers, then the scrapings can be reapplied. (Scraping is fun.) Can use white or a lighter color on top to lighten. Going from dark to light, hard to get an absolute white, so...

You can work light to dark, laying down your highlights and light areas first.

Oil pastels can be blended with your hand or a paper towel. One lady in my class uses baby oil to blend it for a softer look.

Oil pastels seem cheaper than regular pastels, so I bought 2 Strathmore Acrylic textured linen surface pads and different quality paste sets; Pentel Arts Oil Pastels 25 colors, Cray-pas Expressionist 16 colors and Cray-pas Specialist 12 colors. Messed around with it last night before bed. Seems to be a pretty forgiving medium.

Vine charcoal and white charcoal on brown paper sketches working very well.

Artist & Display Pastel Class #4 & misc notes

Pastel Class #4

Instead of doing the traditional linear method (Draw with hard pastel, fill in with hard then soft pastel, then draw lines with hard pastel) we did a draw the value shapes method. Worked all around the paper by filling in first the darks, then the mediums and last the light values. Edges were formed when 2 shapes met each other. Concentrate on the mass of shapes and forms.

She also discussed the geometry of some flowers.

• A tulip is basically shaped like a teacup with an ellipse on the top and bottom. Petals fit in around the ellipse. All petals start from the same place on the stem.
• For an iris, just draw the shapes that you see
• The middle part of a daffodil is basically a cylinder with frilly stuff on it. It has 6 petals, the top 3 form a triangle and the lower ones fill in between.

She also said art is about taking risks. I think what she means is you have to willing to experiment, make mistakes and not worry too much about the final product. For me a risky endeavor is one where you stand a good chance of being hurt or killed and I don't think that's too likely with pastel painting.

Broke down and bought a 5 pan set of pan pastels, red, white, blue, yellow and black. Been experimenting. The hardest part of pastels, any pastels, for me is putting it on dark. I have too light of a touch. It's halfway through April and I still don't have another good candidate for the vanishing farm exhibit.

Helped out last Wednesday at Pius. Worked an acetating table with Mom, sis, brother-in-law and miscellaneous helpers. We really put acetate on a lot of the kids projects and worked well as a team. It was funny, the guy in charge sent to people over to our table to be trained. Probably cause we worked more than we talked. No more upcoming Pius volunteer work this week. I think they're having an exhibit tonight.

My experiment with using Aquabee Fashion Design Bold Bogus Rough Sketch paper with vine charcoal and white for portrait sketching at Milwaukee Sketch Club is working real well. I gave one to the model and the others are taped to a wall in my house.

Exploring Pastel class#3 & Tom Nahreiner Demo at Milwaukee Sketch club

This is going to be short I'm really tired.

Exploring Pastel Class #3
Got to learn about and use pan pastels with sponges & moo acrylic erasor. Use a light touch. Can put 2 colors on one sponge. Can wipe off dirty pan with sponge. Use light circular motion to pick up pan pastel. Today we drew a landscape from our imagination on Teintes dark green pastel. Then we got to draw a picture on a really long red paper from a photo(s). Raining too hard so didn't bring them home.

Tom Nachreiner Demo at Milwaukee Sketch Club

• Excellent. To see more of his art go to http://www.tomnachreiner.com . He also does plein air competitions in door county and cedarburg wisconsin.
  
• Like to work Plein Air. has a studio with bank of north facing windows for winter. Cool lt, warm shadows, constant all day.
  
• When working outdoors, works early to 10am, then 2-6. Wants shadows, although sometime hi noon turns out better than you think.
  
• Prefers oils although has used pastels and water colors. Also does digital art with Wacom tablet.
  
• If working from photo or picture, he turns it upside down so can more easily block in abstract shapes. Shape, Color, Value, temperature. Gets grayed versions of colors down first and big shapes.
  
• Uses homemade plexiglass palette painted same color of canvas on it's backside C-clamped to his stand. Doesn't use medium. Cleans brushes in process with paint thinner, final cleaning with Kerosene. Always has a frame for each canvas he paints. Doesn't varnish.
  
• keeps roll of paper towels handy. has looser, more painterly style.
  
• Color palette of white, lt yel, yel ochre, cad lt, aliz, trans ro, ult blu, raw umber to gray colors, prus blu, no blk.
  
• hold long brushes at ends so can see painting at a distance. Works big shapes to small.
  
• Sneak up on whites and colors.
  
• Uses a pad of paper towels to minimize touching oils and solvents.
  
• Constantly judging lts/dks, warm/cool, color against color, edges soft/hard. compares as works around painting.
  
• Filbert brush double dips colors. angle bright bursh for drawing, more precise, don't overuse.
  
• Each stroke defines 2 areas, backgrd & front.
  
• Feels oil painting teaches you more about painting than other media, have 2 mix colors (vs premixed pastels) and less mechanical drawing & filling in (watercolors)
  
• Can use a plexiglass grid with black, gray & white, dick blick, artworksessentials.com? picture perfect, red cellophane to see values.
  
• Once all general shapes in right area, turns upside right to finetun. Makes it fresh. check temp, color. Big brush to soften things.
  

adios

Exploring Pastel class#2

For our second pastel class at Artist & Display we took a long sheet of paper, drew a line down the middle to divide it in 2 parts and painted a bowl. On one side we did warm colors and on the other side cool colors. Then we painted a frosted vase with 2 flowers in it. Not much discussion this week, just practice.

Bought a spirol pad of 12x18" Strathmore Charcoal paper in assorted tints to practice. My other paper, Canson mi-teintes in assorted colors is only 9x12". I feel like I want to paint larger. Ordered a medium gray view finder to help me see light, medium and dark values in color better. I'm glad I understand the painter's color wheel. Other people in my class are still struggling with it. I'm still working on identifying light, dark and medium values along with warm/cool colors in pastel. (Every color has a warm and cool version) I don't know if I like having all the pastel jumbled together in a box like we have them in class, but I've noticed that that's how most pastel artists tend to work.

Used Aquabee Fashion Design Bold Bogus Rough Sketch paper with vine charcoal and white for portrait sketching at Milwaukee Sketch Club. Worked very well. Missed helping out at Pius studio night- worked too late.

Exploring Pastel class#1 by Pamela Scesniak at Artist and Display Supply Inc

Attended my first class. All materials are provided. Very nice teacher. We did 4 exercises today.

1. Made a simple picture with hard and soft pastels. Drew a child picture of house and tree with hard pastel. Used fingers to smudge away house, then redrew house differently. Then used soft pastel to broadly put 2 colors on tree and one on house. Then put lights on sun side and darks on shadows and shadow side.
2. Hue family. Picked 3 versions of 1 color (hue), a light, medium and dark. She demonstrated that black overlaid a color nullifies (dulls) it to turn it into a shade-tone and white nullifies it (washes it out) to turn it into a tint-tone. Then we made bands horizontally across the paper using the light, medium and dark version. To demonstrate that each color has a warm and cool version we took yellow in a broad vertical band to warm the colors and blue to cool the colors. She noted we should look for warm and cool versions of the same hue.
   
3. Complementary colors. Color wheel, primary colors (red, yellow & blue), secondary colors (orange, green and purple) and complementary colors discussed. She mentioned that complements vibrate when placed side by side, warm colors come forward and cool colors recede. We took a medium gray tone and drew 2 circles about the same size in squares next to each other. Used 2 complementary colors to draw each circle then filled in the background with its complement to demonstrate theory.
   
4. Vase drawing. Sketched on paper with hard pastel close to paper's brownish color. (We used Aquabee's fashion design 897 bold bogus rough sketch paper.) Drew a vertical help line then some squashed circles which were connected to rough in the vase. Then took a light, medium and dark value of the vases hue and colored it in. She suggested starting with the lightest color. Drew a line to represent the table edge and filled in the background with the complementary color.

Before the next class I'd like to make a sheet of each hue of my pastel colors arranged by value, warm and cool tones.

The Vanishing Farm Exhibit July 7- August 16, 2008

Got our paperwork for The Vanishing Farm Exhibit at the One Way Cafe and Gallery in Wauwautosa from SEWPS meeting last night. (Couldn't find a website for the One Way Cafe and Gallery)

• Date: July 7 through August 15, 2008
• Location: One Way Cafe and Gallery, 1425 N. Underwood Ave. Wauwautosa, WI
• Delivery: Sunday, July 6, 2008 2:00-4:00 p.m.
• Pick-up: Saturday August 16, 2008 2:00-4:00 p.m.
• Opening Reception: Friday, July 11, 2008 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the One Way Cafe

Our SEWPS group also has show opportunities at the United Methodist Church in Whitefish Bay and the Schauer Art Center in Hartford, www.SchauerCenter.org .

Now here's my Art goals, subject to changing and fine tuning.

March

• Draw picture(s) of brother for his wife's birthday
• Bring 2 pictures to Milwaukee Sketch Club Critique March 11
• Build a habit of drawing a minimum of 1-2 x per day, morning and evening, everyday
• Build a habit of painting at least one small pastel picture per week

April

• Fine tune and finish 2-5 pictures for Vanishing Farm exhibit

May

• Bring Vanishing Farm pictures to May 7 SEWPS meeting
• Complete Vanishing Farm exhibit form
• Frame best 2 pictures

June

• Vanishing Farm Exhibit
  

Margaret Dyer at Richeson School & Art Gallery, Wisconsin

This is going to be stream of consciousness writing. I'm taking a break from homework right now. I have to figure out a better homework method instead of this last minute stuff. Last semester I blocked in Monday & Wednesday mornings for homework. Maybe I should block in Tues and Wednesday mornings? I'll try that next week.

This weekend I attended a 3 day workshop taught by Margaret Dyer (http://www.margaretdyer.com ) at Richeson School & Art Gallery, http://www.richesonart.com in Kimberly Wisconsin and stayed at the Appleton Inn, http://www.theappletoninn.com . What's really funny is that a lady who's in my Monday night class also attended this workshop and we never mentioned it to each other.

The Appleton Inn is on Prospect which sort of curves around into Appleton/Oneida into College which is then a straight shot over the river to Eisenhower(take a left, it's the traffic lights after 441, you see McDonalds), then take another left at the stop sign just past the Hilton Inn, go straight then make the right hand curve where Kennedy and Marcella (frontage road) meet. It's the second driveway on your right.

Richeson is a distributor of art supplies, plus they have a school and gallery. Their gallery is real cool and open to the public so anyone can visit when they are open. Terry & Annette run the workshops in addition to all their other responsibilities. Our class got a tour of their warehouse and manufacturing area on Friday which is an off day as the people work 4 tens. Pretty cool to see the millwork area where the easels and other wood products for artists are made. (The sawdust is collected to give to a local farmer for animal bedding.) We got to see the machines that cut the paper and make sketchbooks. Peeked in the paint and pastel mixing room. Saw the machine for filling paint tubes. You can buy empty paint tubes. Plus saw all the warehouse storage. Very clean and organized. We also got to eat chinese take out dinner the first night at Darren and Michelle's house. They are super nice people, their house is very lovely with a lot of paintings hung on the wall, plus Michelle is an artist and we got to see this gigantic oil that she is in the process of painting. There is bit of an ice problem and lack of salt availability right now so people put rugs over the ice on the sidewalks.

Prior to attending the class since I am a beginner and really didn't have any supplies, I ordered their $250 workshop special package of 72 unison pastels, 10 sheets of Unison premier pastel paper (five 16x20 & five 18x24), compressed charcoal stick and small pkg of vine charcoal. This package contained everything I needed for this class. I did bring my own masking tape for taping the paper to the backing board. We worked on large, sturdy upright easels. They provided us with backboards. Then at the end of class they gave us a present of 3 unison pastel sticks; white, gray & black plus 10 sheets of 9x12 shale unison paper. Did you know that the static discharges if you let plexiglass sit for a minimum of 2 days after removing the paper? Then you don't want to handle it too much to prevent the static from building back up.

Margaret Dyer was an excellent teacher. The first day we got a half day demonstration. I think she uses LaCarte Pastel paper and started with pressed charcoal. Margaret using a 250 watt bulb on a long pole so you can really see the contrast between light and dark. Her basic work flow is:

1. gesture drawing, looking at the curve of the spine, etc.
   
2. 3D form by drawing basic shapes, cubes, etc.
3. check proportions and refine form. She used a bamboo skewer held at arm's length to measure the head and how many heads long everything was. She showed us you could use the head as a unit of measurement to make a grid on your paper to check your proportions. You always measure from the same place. In the demo, she checked head, shoulder blade, elbow and hip.
4. Then she squinted to find the darks and drew their shapes to block them in. Squinting is very important. You got to squint all the time. Then she just started alternating cool and warm darks until the darks were the right darkness compared to the darkest area emphasized with black.
5. Then she squinted to find the lights and drew them in as blocks. Again alternating between cool and warm lights. She used the side of the stick a lot to draw in the areas.
6. Last was the middle tones to round the forms and blend if needed the light and dark areas. Again working back and forth between the cool and warm middles tones. Sometimes the dark and light areas of the model blends into the dark and light areas of the background. Sometimes it's a sharp edge.
7. Then she refined everything.
   

After that we started painting. Margaret helped me a lot because I had no idea how to work with color. I can see light, dark and middle tones in black & white but in colors it was difficult. So she helped me back picking 3 pinks in light, medium and dark and 3 greens in light, medium and dark. So I basically used those 6 colors plus a little black and white and it worked out pretty well. I need to go through my pastels and figure out the tones of all the sticks. I still need to figure out how to apply pastel better, not in such a sketchy manner. I like to sorta just scribble but by doing that I don't get the painterly appearance. I get a sketchy appearance. I'd also like to practice that grid thing. I bet I could do the same technique with a still life.

Pastels are very messy and their is a lot of pigment that drops on the floor under the easel. You keep the easel vertical to let it drop off your painting. Lot of people got pastel on their faces. I did OK because I used to work in a paint lab developing, making and applying paint. So I basically used my right hand as my messy hand while keeping my left hand as my clean hand. The last day I was tired and dropped my pastel sticks a few times. They break when they hit the epoxied cement floor. It probably would be a good idea to make a trough to catch the dust and stand on a washable rug to keep the floor clean along with hopefully preventing your pastel sticks from not breaking when you drop them. A lot of people wear vinyl gloves. This lady who lives in the area but previously lived in washington turned me on to gloves in a bottle, http://www.glovesinabottle.com . That works real well so I bought some from Richeson. This stuff is fragrance free which I really like. Richeson has a store area so you can buy stuff you need for the workshop and add it to your tab which you pay up at the end of the workshop. You could bring your lunch in but I paid $9/day for lunch, 1st day was subs, 2nd day was sandwiches and 3rd day was pizza. Plus in the morning they had coffee, fruit and donuts. At lunch was chips, cookies and fruit. For sure they was water in bottles. I don't remember if there was soda or not as I don't drink it. There was plenty to eat and we had food left over.

Also if you ever go to the appleton/ kimberly/ oshkosh area, see if there's room for you at The Appleton Inn. The proprietors, Carole and Gordy are extremely nice. Carole is a painter also. If you're lucky she'll show you some of her work. Plus she extremely talented with interior decorating. The inn has a Victorian theme with quilts, etc. that she created, very restful, but their upstairs living area is modern. She also quilts and teaches quilting classes. Gordy and Carole have totally remodeled the inn. Gordy is very talented on the computer. They were very busy originally so didn't set up their website, but we looked at it while I was there, it's php driven and it looks like once he learns php he'll be able to make any updates they need when they need it.

I really met a lot of great people and expanded my horizons. There's a whole new world out there that I am getting a glimpse of.

OK, enough goofing around. Back to homework