Workhouse Demo in Oil

Over the weekend as a part of the Second Saturday Gallery Walk at the Workhouse, I created a replica oil painting of a 5x7 that sold there last summer. Doing a demo can be a gab fest laced with education, but despite all the talking I almost finished the 9x12 version of that 5x7 image from a photo I took near Nokesville VA.

Regardless of working in oil, I got in a lot of education about pastels based on the attendee's interests in my hanging this month. Looking left to right at the pastels, below, my display had an acrylic underpainting with a prepared pumice surface on foam board, a watercolor underpainting on Uart, and (top) a pastel underpainting using the float method on Pastelbord. The variety of methods that pastels offer can be mind boggling and I was amazed at how interested adults and children alike were about techniques and materials.

Ever pragmatic and humorous, I found it wonderful painting in front of a wall of my work, which gave credibility to my skills as people witnessed my demo piece go through its ugly stage, as all paintings do. I should bring a similar display when I work plein air so that passing viewers know that paintings do come around.

Fellow Workhouse artist and metal fabricator, Mike Minnery, later brought his family by for a pastel lesson.

Many thanks to Workhouse artist, Jack Dyer, for the photos.

Old Town Alexandria Patch

I enjoy the local Patch online newspapers. They actually want community news and follow leads you provide. Great system there!

Here's their first installment of the Exhibition Series. More to follow.

Firebricks and Frames Exhibition Series: Save the Date

I am very excited to be a part of this solo show series, which begins in June. The kick off will be June 8 at 7pm in Alexandria. My own show, Breeze By, will be up for the month of August. It will combine painting and photography, the mundane from a summer day made even more beautiful. The Opening will be Thursday, August 4, 6-9p.

Quite a diverse group, other participating artists are Marsha Brown, Meghan Coyle, Camden Noir, Tracey Wilkerson, Jessica Hopkins, and Vaughn Cottman.

Skies and More Skies

 

For Saturday, May 14, at the Workhouse's Second Saturday from 6p until probably 8p, I will be doing a demo in oil in W-16. My goal will be to finish a painting and have a wet canvas sale at the end. Please stop by if you're in the area.

Sometimes artists have a little ping of regret when a piece sells. Last year at the Workhouse, I sold a beautiful 5x7 in the most glorious gold frame. It was a Old Masters gem based on a photo I took near Nokesville, VA.

Let's hope I have the same ping on Saturday. I will be recreating, to some degree, Evening Flame in a larger format, using a wonderful Pannelli Telati fine cotton panel again. They are perfectly smooth, which is the feel I want for a sunset.

If you happen by the Workhouse, look for my wall of paintings, an unusual honor as I requested my submissions for the month be displayed together. When I paint this sky, I will be surrounded by other skies I've created in pastel and oil, to include the two most recent posts here. This will be a lot of fun.

Skyline Atmospherics

Skyline Atmospherics was created based on a picture I took from Skyline Drive. It's a very close recreation, which began as a watercolor underpainting.

Put together as a demo for the Springfield Art Guild, I am happy to have volunteered for the project. Today is another demo day for SAG, so come by the Springfield Mall's Community Room (between JC Penney and the elevator) between 2-4 to see demos and the current show, a Member's Choice Award Exhibit. As you can tell below, when given a whole table and not balancing it all outdoors, it makes me very happy to spread out.

 Photo by Jon Strother

Next weekend, I'll be doing a demo in water soluble oils at the Workhouse in Lorton from about 6-8pm May 14; there will be a framed wet canvas sale when I am finished. My goal will be to recreate a larger version of Evening Flame, a 5x7 which sold there last year.

Skyline Atmospherics
pastel
12x16
SOLD

Evening Play

Evening Play was created in preparation for the Virginia Pastel Society meeting this week. Two shades of brown ground were laid down and fixed. Next, the sky of medium blue, deep purple, and magenta were broadly painted in pastel. For this one, I sprayed it all down with isopropyl alcohol. A surprise to me, it took about two hours to dry! The pastel did not float the same way as with water, but it buried itself nicely into the sanded texture of the Pastelbord as it dried, just as it would have with a water float, so I like it as a means of pastel underpainting.

To the left, some of the pink did float to give a slight pink glow into the white triangle I'd left untouched. I accented that with creamy sunlight, extending it upward and outward. I waited until after floating to put those details in so that the overall painting would not have a chalky feel with a floated chalk-based color.

At the base, I streaked in a medium tan and a darker green to give the ground more life. The distant trees, treated just as the ground was, show several dark purples and I layered in a bit of pink glow on them.

It is difficult to paint a believable sunset, but I continue to try, as the bold colors are an enjoyable substitute to green!

Evening Play
pastel on Pastelbord
8x10

Pastel Society of Virginia - Meeting 2

NOTE; Please look to the tab above for the latest on Pastel Society of Virginia, our shows, and membership.

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This week, we had the second meeting of the Virginia Pastel Society and had our first opportunity to paint together. In advance, we had decided a number of meeting topics and first on the list was the pastel underpainting method whereby pastel is laid down on Pastelbord, then saturated with water and left to dry. The resulting painting can be merely accented, can be painted heavily, or can be sprayed/dried repeatedly.

I first saw it in a demo with Stan Sperlak, which I covered here.

Following are the works of some of the participants. Mine from both that day and the day before will be posted soon.

Roxanne used a sunset photo I took at Cape May NJ last week. In this image, her board has been sprayed with water and still has a wet area remaining. Surprisingly, we found these 8x10 to 9x12s to take less than 30 minutes to dry in the sun.

Esta's is from a dramatic sunset picture she took near her home in FL.

Roxanne's wound up very mysterious.

Unfortunately, my camera download malfunctioned and I lost the last half of my card, so I can't show off Carolyn's landscape or the other finished pieces.

Our next meeting will be on May 24 at 10am. We'll dive into some landscape, architecture, and animal portraits when we go plein air at Frying Pan Park. Rain/yucky day alternate location will be at the Sully Substation.

Sadie's Sauna

This prissy, petite cat and I were inseparable. I got her from the pound when she was five weeks old and she lived to be almost 19. She was my pair bound, constantly on my lap or sharing my bed. In her later years, she grew to have a scruffy coat and darkened eyes. She found the computer monitor and cable box to be great sources of warmth to her skinny bones. I called them Sadie's Saunas, which lends itself to her red background.

Sadie's Sauna
soft pastel on Canson
12x12

Tap Tap Tap

This blog beckons. I'm waiting on the good weather again to paint. Although I've been painting and demoing a bit indoors, it gives me less satisfaction than plein air.Green Acres!

Keeping up my photography blog has been a blast. I have it programmed for daily photos to come out for months. Although I am lucky to have a cute kid and cats, the blog offers much, much more. Go add yourself as a reader.

In the meantime, I am trying to organize local pastelists who might want to form a society at some point, probably either Pastel Society of Virginia (PSV) or Pastel Society of Northern Virginia (PSNova). We can meet and paint and share, then we'll make it more official down the road. This has been a passion of mine for many years and I am ready to drive it, but I don't especially care about leading it and dealing with all the details. Hopefully, we'll come together to nail it all down, plus have communicating chapters all over the Commonwealth to boot!

We meet for the first time on Tuesday March 22 at 10am in Chantilly near I-66 and Routes 28 and 50.. Please contact me for more info. I'll keep a running email list of ideas and preferences. If the meeting time/location does suit you, then we'll see you there each month. More will be posted here.

As always, look for my paintings hanging in Workhouse W-16  in Lorton and The Loft Gallery in Occoquan.

Photography Success

It would be so easy to get spoiled. My first time out of the gates, I won a People's Choice Award through SAG and the visitors of the Photography and 3-D Art Show. This image is called Wings of Fancy #2 and it is printed in metallic inks, perfect for shimmery butterflies.

If you live near DC, don't miss the butterfly exhibit at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton each year. The whole experience feels like an instant spa day.

Here's to finding more photography exhibits to share my finds.