Looking Back

Recently on Facebook someone posted a picture of some really old pastels they were given as a gift. One was a box of Alphacolor pastels, which is the same brand I used in high school art class. That got me to thinking about digging out my old artwork. I knew I had a couple pastel drawings which I thought were pretty good at the time.

These are the two sketchbooks which I used in art class a couple years to turn in my homework. The teacher (Judy Felgar) would write the grade, and occasionally, a comment on each assignment. It was fun looking back at these and had to laugh at several of the comments!

If I would have heeded her words all those years ago, I'd be a much better artist today - "more lights and darks!" LOL

 PRACTICE - draw from life!!

Here are the two pastels I remember. My first pastels and I have loved using them ever since!
The first one below was drawn on Canson paper. We had an elaborate setup in the classroom, with fabric and props for drawing models and still lives. There will be many more versions of this scene in the following sketches.

 This was my first pastel on velour paper. Loved the feel of that paper.

I kinda like this one below. We did a lot of collages pasted with rubber cement.

I did many portraits and figures....

I even did some cloisonne metalworking - theses are some design sketches for that. Wish I had the finished piece to show you.

These things are kinda fun. They are made kinda like paper dolls or snowflakes where you fold the paper up and cut many at once. These appear to be 'rock stars'. Weird......

There are many more things in the sketchbooks, but this last one I am most proud of. 

In class, we were doing printmaking. Here is my original pencil drawing, followed by a sheet of hard plastic that was etched with an awl to create a printing plate:

 These are text prints.

 and I had to show you the back. The paper we tested on was scrap mimeograph paper! That really dates me! HA

 Here is the final print, which I entered into a local art contest, and won a Merit award!

Annual Trek to Zanesville, 69th Annual Ohio Exhibition

Today I took a little road trip to Zanesville Ohio to see the 69th Annual Ohio Exhibition at the Zanesville Museum of Art. I learned of this annual exhibit last year and thought it was a very interesting exhibit in a very interesting museum.

Although the Ohio exhibit brings me to the museum, I am happy to see some pieces from the great masters. We were lucky to visit during the showing of "European Prints and Drawings from the Permanent Collection", which is a historical perspective on images from the great masters of printmaking: Rembrandt, Durer, Piranesi, Goya, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Kollwitz, and Chagall.

The museum also has an extensive selection of Ohio glass and pottery, and works by Cezanne, Grandma Moses, Lautrec, Matisse, Picasso, Rembrandt, Rubens. Exceptional Asian, Indian, African, Pre-Columbian collections. Decorative Arts Ancient to Tiffany and a Madame Alexander Doll Collection.

The Ohio show is a juried exhibition open to all Ohio artists and artisans. Seventy-five works by 68 artists around Ohio were chosen for this year's exhibit. I am lucky to know several of the artists personally, and was happy to see their work hanging in such a beautiful show. One of these years I will enter the show myself.

Procrastination

After the great pastel workshop with Stan Sperlak a couple weeks ago, I was gung-ho to get back in my studio and start creating. But I kept procrastinating. I work full time, and by the time I got home and figured out dinner, I had no ambition to do something creative. Besides, my studio was a wreck and I didn't have any space to start something new. 

This morning, I had some time to get in there and try to clean it up. I have a habit of piling stuff on top of stuff and then you always need to thing on the bottom. I thought I had a good setup for storing my studio pastels, but then I've been buying some new, expensive handmade pastels lately and wanted a better way of organizing them. Although my Great American pastels come in a lovely wooden box, I never seemed to use them. The Terry Ludwig's come in nice padded boxes but they were on to the top of the pile and ready to get knocked off.

So, I started thinking about a new way of storing everything so they would all get used. In the past, I have made my own trays out of foam core (the bottom layers here show two of these trays), but I really wanted something better with covers - so when I needed to pile stuff up, at least they would be protected. 
I searched online at the usual pastel supply companies, but I didn't want to spend big bucks on wood cases. I thought about what I might be able to re-purpose. It dawned on me, that restaurant full sheet cake pans would be a nice size. I live only a couple miles from a food service supply company that sells to the general public so I hopped in the car to see what they had. 

I found two sizes - the full sheet cake size is about 18" x 25" x 1" and they had clear plastic snap on lids! Just the ticket! The pans were about $9 but the surprisingly, the plastic lids cost more than the aluminum pans at about $12. I had originally thought I needed two large trays to hold all my pastels, but when I looked at them in the store, they seemed HUGE, so I only bought one full size and one 1/2 size set. The half price set was on special at $5 for the tray and $7 for the lid.

I used to be a quilter, so decided to cushion my pastels with some cotton batting I had stored away. This brand is Warm and Natural and it has been needle punched to make it more like felt than cotton wadding. 

I got busy filling up the pan. I decided to snap the Great Americans (on the left) in half and leave some in the wooden box.

I also had some Mount Visions I added last, which helped to fill in the missing colors in the 'light' end of the colors.


Pretty much filled up the tray! I am sure this will make it easier to use all the brands and a better way of storing them all. 

I wasn't sure what I would use the smaller sheet pan set for, but luckily, all my hard pastels fit nicely without taking them out of their boxes.



Now, I need to finish up getting the studio cleaned up so I don't have anymore excuses! Now that the plein air season in Ohio is pretty much over with, I will have lots of Saturday mornings open now. In the colder months, I do work much more in the studio.