Saturday Doreen St John Workshop

Spent today in a pastel workshop on water and reflections with Doreen St John. We had a full room full of 15 students and we all had a great time! I didn't take many in-process shots, but a few are shown below. I worked on a 11x14 gray Ampersand Pastelbord. I need to do just a few final adjustments.

Saturday Plein Air - Wetlands

After rain, rain, rain, and more rain - we finally had a BEAUTIFUL day for plein air! We painted at a small wetlands in a neighborhood park. This used to be a boggy area, but the park department reconstructed it into very pretty wetlands with boardwalks, stepping stones, wildflowers, and interesting trees. 

Although we are pretty far north for Bald Cypress trees, there are several planted in the wetlands and they seem to be thriving. Their "knees" really caught my eye and I decided to paint while standing on a boardwalk.

Today I tried out a Richeson Gesso Board which came toned in a warm color. It worked very well for me, I will certainly use them again. I also tried out the new Gamblin Solvent Free Fluid Medium, which worked really well also. 

Although my easel was facing east, I was looking to my right to the south to paint the cypress beside me, as the boardwalk was fairly narrow and was busy with kids on bikes and people walking dogs. Process shots below. 

 

"Knobby Knees", 8x10, oil on Richeson gesso board, warm toned. 

Micro Pastel Travel Set

WOW, can't believe that here it is July 5th and my last post was June 15th. I've been busy doing several creative things, but nothing much to show for it. I'm preparing for an upcoming trip and although my main focus on this trip will be oil painting within my workshop, I wanted to take along a little kit of pastels. I'm trying to travel very light and hope to only check one suitcase and have a carryon. It's hard to have any room for clothes when you would prefer to fill the bags with art supplies.

So, here is the micro pastel set I put together today. My friend Michael Chesley Johnson authored an article about an Extreme Limited Pastel Palette in 2008 and since I will be working with Michael on my trip, I put together a set like his, on the left. I also wanted to bring along a few other colors shown at the right. Most of these are NuPastel and a few Faber Castell Polychromos.

Then I used a Clear Bag "box" that holds my 5x7 pastel papers (UArt and Pastelmat), clear bags to hold the finished paintings, a backer board, and rubber bands to hold the papers while painting.

That could be enough supplies to paint with, but I had to include a cute little tin suitcase my friend Wendy bought for me at Savannah. I filled it with a few short pastel pencils/sharpener, a piece of foam for blending, and a small piece of a microfiber towel to clean the pastels and my fingers. I also made a little view finder in the 5x7 ratio.

 Everything fits nicely into a zipper bag, with room for a pack of wet-wipes.