Cherokee Cellars, a new art gallery and winery opening in Murphy, NC, is looking for a gallery artist. If interested, please send samples of your work to Cathy Cammick at cammick@peoplepc.com. She can also be reached at (941) 627-0055 or in the evenings at (828) 835-9565.
Member News, Luana Luconi Winner
From her series titled “The Children of Collodi,” Luana Luconi Winner’s 20 x 16 pastel of 30 Pinocchios called “Hanging Around” was accepted into the Pastel Society of America annual exhibition at the National Arts Club in NYC.
180 pieces were selected from over 1,000 entries this year.
The town of Collodi, Italy is where Pinocchio was written and sits right next to the town of Lucca in Tuscany where Luana’s grandparents were born.
2011 IAPS Web Show: Call for Entires
The prospectus for the 2011 IAPS web show is now available on the IAPS web site. Entry date is October 15, and the exhibition is on the web so no work needs to be shipped. To download the prospectus, visit: http://www.pastelinternational.com/COMPETITIONS/exhibitions.html
They have also posted a collection of videos and photos from the 2011 convention on the web site.
N.C. Arts Council accepting applications for 2012–2014 Artist Directory
The new Artist Directory is a successor to the popular Touring Artist Directory, but expands the type of activities artists can promote to include not only performances, residencies and workshops but also a range of other ways artists share their work and expertise with the public, such as commissions, consultancies, festivals, guest curatorial work and artistic direction, mentoring and panel service. Selection for the directory is based on artistic merit and quality of experience in the activities artists wish to list in their profiles. North Carolina artists who are at least 18 years of age and have been year-round residents of the state for at least one year immediately prior to the application deadline may apply. Students are not eligible. Applications are only accepted electronically using Arts Grants Online.
Deadline: August 15
For more information visit NC Arts Council website or contact Jeff Pettus (craft, film and visual arts) at (919) 807-6513 or Burdette Southerland (general inquiries) at (919) 807-6510.
IAPS: Richard McKinley workshop
This is part 3 of the 2011 IAPS recap by our treasurer, Anne Kiefaber. Read Part 1: The Setting and Part 2: Workshops and Demonstrations
The Franciscan was one of the larger of the hotel’s meeting rooms and it was packed when Richard McKinley walked in the room. A tall, slim, rather good-looking man, who reminded me of George Clooney once he started speaking. His delivery was funny, personable and clever.
One of the more interesting of the demos, Richard McKinley’s approach was entertaining and well-planned. In his approach, he uses watercolor as an under painting, and in today’s demo it was a scene in Oregon showing an interesting line of tall pine trees along the horizon with a stream and ditch coming forward in the picture plane. His process has three parts to it: Sensitivity, the concept and the drawing stage; Serendipity, the intuitive rendering of your under-painting; and Solution, finishing the painting.
During the Sensitivity stage, Richard draws in his subject, using pencil. He places a dot in the center of his paper so he is aware where the center lies. The he draws in his subject, keeping it very loose, though he is very conscious of the perspective of the land and the trees, indicating this with concentric lines for trees going upward and simultaneously curved lines that follow hollows of the land. Richard uses a very sketchy style in his drawing because as he says, “There are no lines in nature. We are the ones that finish the closures.” Also in this stage, he figures out where his area of interest will be. During this conceptual stage, he decides on the horizon level, so he is mentally placing himself in the scene. Where one places the horizon says something about your feelings. If one is looking down, the feeling of the piece will be introspective whereas above the line is more ethereal. You, the artist, are in control of the placement. He relies on the rule of thirds: field of vision, field of view and depth and breadth.
The Serendipity or under-painting stage is the set up of your idea. This is where you set up the majority of your values and edges, soft to sharp and dark to light. “Be Playful,” he advises. In his watercolor under painting, he used: warm yellow, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, sap green and burnt sienna to make all his mixtures. Richard puts his darks in first and says that when in doubt use Payne’s grey or a neutral. He was working wet in wet on sanded paper and was allowing the all the drips to remain. He used warmer tones in the foreground and bluer ones in the background, using a “sfumato” technique where the transition between the lights and darks was smoky. He likes his under painting to be perceived as through a veil once he has applied his pastel. He feels this gives a feeling of depth in the landscape, so one has the subtle perception of things underneath. Richard uses complimentary colors in areas of luminosity like sky or water to create that quality of light that is opalescent. He uses orange and alizarin crimson in the sky and adds blue across part of it. He also adds green near the horizon but also uses this cool somewhere else in the painting.
Richard McKinley adds most of his pastel in the Solution part of his painting process. He advises that dark is a weight and suggests adding the darks and lights at the same time into the area of interest. Develop them simultaneously, and never get your dark darker than value three. He tries to use values that are close to the under painting, and advises trying to repeat the color whenever possible and weave other colors through it. When he uses his softer pastels, he uses it like staccato in music with pings of accents like dots or dashes.
Richard McKinley relies on field sketches, rather than photography, to understand the way the light and dark on the land works and also to finish his pieces in the studio. When out in the field, he has another bunch of 3’s he considers: where to paint, where to pee and where to park. His audience roared when he told us that one, as it is so true when one is working in plein-air.
A wonderful demo, full of interest, hilarity and earnestness as one feels he cares very much about his art and about imparting helpful information to other artists.
IAPS: Workshops and Demonstrations
This is part 2 of the 2011 IAPS recap by our treasurer, Anne Kiefaber. Read Part 1: The Setting.
The room was quiet except for the scratching of pastel on sanded surfaces or the teacher quietly giving advice to a student. Concentration was high as each student was trying his/her best to become a better landscapist or figure painter. Sometimes one could hear murmurings among certain students as they attained a good point. This was a typical workshop at the convention.
From a learning point of view, the IAPS convention offered an abundance of choices for learning and inspiration. First of all was the quality of the presenters, some of the greats of the pastel world: Maggie Price, Albert Handell, Doug Dawson, Bill Hosner, Alan Flattman, Elizabeth Mowry and Richard McKinley, to name a few.
Workshops in landscape, portraiture and figure were added for the first time this year and I am sure they will be repeated as they were quickly filled.
Richard McKinley gave a two-day workshop, using underpainting in a pastel painting, Clark Mitchell gave one on vibrant skies and water and Desmond O’Hagan gave a workshop on raising the level of one’s pastel painting. Margaret Evans was offering a landscape workshop in the mountains at the end of the convention, which sounded like fun to me. Others like Kim Lordier, offered a one day workshop on painting snow–what a great idea when it was so hot! Margaret Dyer gave a workshop painting the figure.
Luana and I decided to watch demonstrations instead of doing a workshop, so on Friday we chose to see how Claudia Seymour painted her classic still-lifes. Her demo “The Beauty of Light” was quite good. She had set up an elaborate still-life with artichokes, a basket of eggs, a tall pitcher of vinegar as well as a bottle of tabasco sauce and a copper saucepan. A stick of butter was in the saucepan and a set of measuring spoons was hanging overhead to break the line.
She had pre-drawn several steps of her process and would demonstrate her way of setting in the darks first then the brightest local color so she could ‘see’ it. She was very well prepared and organized and her humorous approach was interesting and fun. I also felt for her because she was set up on a small stage along with her set up, lights, a camera. They had provided screens so if the artist blocked your view, you could still see what she was doing. I was really impressed with this artist and her work is incredible considering she has been doing this for a relatively short time.
Our next demo experience was not so successful. It was Rae Smith’s demonstration on different kinds of mist. The first was early morning mist and the second was evening mist at the beach, but I never made it to the third. This artist does not draw but uses shapes to start her pieces and she did not explain her process but depended on questions to orient her demo. I was surprised since she is the president of the pastel society of America and she teaches as well.
On Saturday, we attended Richard McKinley’s demo which was well organized and fabulous although we both questioned his use of pencil to do his under-drawing.
Finally, our last demo was Duane Wakeham’s talk on the use of color as value and sometimes as shadow. He used a power point of many different award-winning artists to show how they used their color in their paintings. This was very interesting and one thing Luana and I noticed was that most of the winning paintings had primary colors as a dominant color.
Member News, Margaret Roth
Margaret Roth has a new website of her work and would like your feedback about the site format. Please check it out and contact her with any suggestions!
IAPS: The Setting
This is part 1 of the 2011 IAPS recap by our treasurer, Anne Kiefaber.
When I decided to go to the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS for short) I did not know what to expect since the only other convention I had attended was the National Portrait Society. It exceeded expectations beyond anything I had imagined and I have come away with new ideas to try as well as the realization that entering juried shows is very important from the standpoint of any sort of recognition.
Since there is so much to tell, I have decided to write a series of articles on IAPS in order to do justice to all my impressions of my first—but definitely not my only—IAPS convention.
Hotel Albuquerque stands on the outskirts of Old Town, the oldest part of Albuquerque, whose adobe construction and winding alleyways are charming and fun to explore. The 12-story hotel itself is constructed in a similar style with an adobe-like material and laid out in the traditional spanish style around a cloister-like courtyard.
The courtyard reminded me of monasteries since a lovely porch or walkway ran all the way around an enclosed grassy space whose outskirts were profuse with flowers. At the far end was a lovely arbor where trumpet vines climbed happily in profusion. Near there is another little courtyard where you find Luana and me in this photo above. Behind us is the pool but, of course, we didn’t figure that out till nearly our last day.
Inside the hotel are tiled floors, a casual café and restaurants where we ended up eating many of our meals. There was also another higher-end eating area, complete with white tablecloths, adjacent to the café. Then, there was the candy store, a euphemism for the vendors room. You can of course imagine why- we were all like kids in a candy store when we entered that room.
Terry Ludwig was well represented with a sensual array of all his pastels in all their wonderful nuances. Girault, Schminke, Holbien, Unison and the wonderful if pricey Henri Roche pastels were well represented. Vendors featuring papers of U-art, Richeson and the lovely pastelmat were also there. There were all sorts of artists demonstrating at the various booths, which was interesting to watch.
In our free time, we wandered through “Old Town” with its winding streets, fun shops and interesting courtyards. There is also a museum, which is both an art museum and a bit of a historical museum as well.
Member News, Kim Werfel
Kim Werfel will be displaying her portraits, landscapes and more at the Studio Supply in Chapel Hill for the month of July. Visit with her at the reception this Friday July 8th, 6-9pm during the artwalk at 421 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Above is my pastel “Waiting for Mom”, 12″ x 16″, pastel, available framed for $500. Prints will soon be available. A doe gave birth outside my back window during Memorial Day weekend and left this beautiful fawn camouflaged in the leaves. I just had to paint her!
Member News, Diana Coidan
Diana L. Coidan was juried into the Associated Artists of Southport Summer Reginal Juried Exhibition and received Second Place for her pastel “Un Bateau Rouge”.
Exhibition dates: June 27-July 24 at Franklin Square Gallery
“Un Bateau Rouge” by Diana Coidan
Call for Artists: Connecticut Pastel Society, Renaissance in Pastel 2011
The Connecticut Pastel Society invites submissions to its 18th Annual National Exhibition: Renaissance in Pastel 2011. Please note that the postmark deadline for entries is this Friday, July 1, 2011.
Download a PDF of the prospectus.
Member News, Melissa Walker
Melissa Walker will be one of two featured artists at the Clayton Center Gallery in Clayton, NC with new acrylic and collage paintings during the month of July. Join her on Thursday, July 7, from 6-7:30pm for the reception.
Join Melissa Walker in Burlington, NC for 8 days of artistic fun, on July 11-14 and July 18-21. She will be teaching techniques to improve your drawing and painting skills, visual journals, altered books and ATC’s. For more information, email her at melissa@melissawalkerartist.com.
Member News, Kurt Weiser
Kurt Weiser has had a very successful year so far with his art, plus he and his wife have just welcomed a brand new baby girl, Lola, into their family!
2011 Piedmont Pastel Society, Charlotte, NC – Regional Juried Member Exhibition
“Thunder Hill” won The People’s Choice Award
2011 Tennessee Art League 46th Annual Central South Art Competition, Nashville, TN – National Juried Exhibition in all mediums
“Property Line” won The TAL Past Presidents Award
2011 Art League of Hilton Head, Hilton Head, SC – National Juried Exhibition in all mediums
“Backlight” – Finalist for Jury of Selection
2011 2nd Annual Art Competition FTCC, Fayetteville, NC – National Juried Exhibition in all mediums
“Autumn Color” – Finalist for Jury of Selection
2011 Pastel Society of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC – Regional Juried Member Exhibition
“Property Line,” “Heading Home” and “Climbing Vine” – Finalists for Jury of Selection
Member News, Diana Coidan
The Town of Cary presents a solo exhibition by PSNC member, Diana L. Coidan, “Pastel Expressions” Above, Below, and Beyond at Cary Town Hall (Academy Street, Cary, NC) on June 24 – August 22, 2011. There will be a reception during the Cary Art Loop on Friday, June 24th from 6-8pm.
Member News, Luana Luconi Winner
Luana Luconi Winner participated in the 18th international juried exhibition at the International Association of Pastel Societies in Albuquerque, NM. Her painting “Children of Collodi: Gathering” was one of 85 paintings chosen for the exhibition in June 2011.
She will also be participating in the national exhibition Pastels by Invitation 2011 at the Creative Arts Center, Chatham, MA on Cape Cod. Forty-nine national leaders in pastel including Albert Handell, Jimmy Wright, Claudia Seymour, Maggie Price, and others will be exhibited from August 4th – September 2nd, 2011. Each artist will exhibit one piece. Luana’s painting is “Captain’s Table.” www.pastelsbyinvitation.com
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