Monthly Archives: July 2009

PAC Juried Show Acceptance

I have just received word that two of my three entries into the Pastel Artists Canada juried annual show have been accepted: Indrawn Breath (the painting I performed “tree-age” on, as documented in a former post to this journal, and seen framed –with a reflection of me–below) and Salt Spring Summer (also see below).  The [...]

A Day with the Pre-Raphaelites

I recently attended a fabulous exhibition of pre-Raphaelite paintings at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  This group of English painters from the mid 1800’s decided that art had gone downhill after the Rennaissance painter Raphael and they determined to paint in the manner and style of the early Rennaissance painters (hence, pre-Raphaelite).  The group included [...]

Heads in the Clouds

During a recent family visit, three of the women requested a “private” one-day intro to pastel workshop, so we rolled out the clouds…
None of these gals had ever tried pastels before–pretty great results, eh?  Congrats to all of you and keep pastelling!
Next intro workshop, Aug 8/9 at Meta4 Gallery in Port Perry.

As well, [...]

New Toys, New Ploys (or, It Can be Easy Being Green)

This May for the first time I splurged and traveled to Albuquerque New Mexico for the biannual International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) convention.  It’s THE place to be for a pastel artist.  Not only did I attend demos by long-admired pastel artists (including Liz Heywood-Sullivan, Les DeMille, Sean Dye and Jimmy Wright), I got [...]

The Power of Negative Thinking

Now, before you get worried that I’m turning into a pessimist, let me explain…I’m talking about a technique I’ve been trying this past few weeks in which you start by adding a layer of black pastel to the paper, and then erase back to the lights (i.e. work negatively).  It’s an idea I got from [...]

Pastel Pals’ Show

Although I have been too tardy about posting to get this post out before the end of the show, I still wanted to mention a great show I saw in May at the Sunrise Gallery in Burlington, Ontario.  A group of pastel painters who paint en plein air almost every week put together a fabulous [...]