Painting Gum Blossoms

“Australian wildflowers are a challenge to paint,” says Lyn. “Some of them are intriguingly complex and rather chaotic, but on careful inspection have a wonderful order to them. They’re purpose-built for a harsh environment, and you can’t help but admire their tenacity.”

Her award-winning Gum Blossoms (right; pastel, 23×11), featuring sunlit anemone-like pink stamen “petals” native to the Land Down Under, is a painting “all about the contrasts of textures and shapes,” Lyn says. “It’s also about creating the illusion of dimensionality. Compositionally, I had to be careful because of the strong vertical and horizontal components, but I found that the shadow provided the cohesion needed.”

The process for her bold, complex flower paintings begins with a photograph. The compositional process, she says, “is further investigated by using two right-angled pieces of paper that I move around on the photo until I settle on a format that describes the subject in the most exciting way.” In this case, she was interested in the long vertical edginess of the leaves which, she says, “helped elevate and emphasize the round messiness of the bloom itself.”

Unless she’s using multiple images for a painting, Lyn bypasses the preliminary sketch stage. “I squint to identify the value and edge relationships within the subject and then open my eyes to see the color of the tone,” she says. “I work from dark to light, and basically from top to bottom, completing elements as I go.”

To unify the color and value transitions, the artist blends with her finger or with strokes of pastel. “Any blending is always done in a sculptural way,” she says. “I imagine the feel and the shape of the object and put that imagined feeling into my hand action.”

Lyn uses multiple pastel brands, including Terry Ludwig, Sennelier, Great American, Girault, Holbein, Henri Roché, and Unison, and works on either Kitty Wallis paper or Ampersand Pastelbord. She says her methods are always evolving as an artist. “I’m building on what has gone before but always searching for a greater understanding of my craft to give voice to my artistic vision and to speak eloquently of things that delight and inspire me.”~Beth Williams

Salmagundi Club president Claudia Seymour offers her own advice in Pastel Painting Techniques: Still Life Flowers. Preview the DVD here, and get it now while it’s 40% off retail. Once you’ve studied the lessons, set up your floral arrangement and then seize the day and create!

From your flower-child at heart,
Cherie

Glorious (pastel, 24×36) by Liz-Haywood Sullivan, author of Painting Brilliant Skies & Water in Pastel. www.lizhaywoodsullivan.com

Maybe that’s why I can get lost in a well-executed landscape painting. Liz Haywood-Sullivan is one artist who can put me in a different time and place when I view her works. In this excerpt from Pastel Journal (“Lighting Up the Sky,” October 2007), Loraine DeBonis writes about Liz’s paintings, and shares how she captures light.

Turning on the Lights

Liz’s main goal is to translate her memories of the light of a place onto a piece of paper. To do this, she always starts with a thumbnail sketch, first determining the composition and size of her piece. Then she selects a surface, either black Canson paper or white Kitty Wallis sanded paper.

The surface she chooses depends largely on the mood of the landscape as well as her own mood at the time. “If I really want the piece to sparkle and have really bright light, I’ll use the Wallis paper. No matter how much white I put down on the black paper, there’s still an underlying grayness that comes through,” she explains. “But I like working on black when I’m painting snow. I love to lay the white down as if it’s snowing on the paper. Growing up in upstate New York, I’m very familiar with gray days.” She also likes to use Canson black paper for scenes with a lot of darks.

When working on Wallis paper, she applies an underpainting to the entire surface–except areas that have a white light coming through–sometimes choosing colors complementary to what she wants the final color to be. Laying in the color, using the side of her pastel sticks, Liz puts in the dark and light areas and draws the basic forms. Then she stands back and examines her piece using a mirror, a favorite trick for spotting flaws. The forgiving nature of pastel, she says, allows her to change things around if the mirror points out a problem. “I’m always using mirrors to evaluate the balance of a composition. Even though I’ve gotten into the underpainting at this point, I can go in and change things if necessary.”

Once she’s satisfied with the composition, Liz uses a ¾-inch flat brush and rubbing alcohol to create washes that, when dry, restore the tooth of the paper and create a base on which to build the rest of her painting. Then she continues to add layers of color, working dark to light with her many pastels. She likes a variety of brands, from harder varieties–Rembrandt and Girault–to softer pastels such as Diane Townsend, Terry Ludwig and Unison. Although she admits that you can never have too many pastels, she typically uses only 30 to 50 colors on a given painting, relying instead on color-layering to produce the “right” color–rather than hoping to find it in her pastel box.~Loraine DeBonis

Fortunately, Liz has written a book–perhaps the book–on this topic. Painting Brilliant Skies & Water in Pastel is now available for pre-order, so you can be one of the first to get your powdery hands on a copy. Bonus: you can get it for $19.81 from North Light Shop, a savings of $9.18 off retail. After you take a look at this new resource, go outside and see what you can see in the sky.

Always looking up,
Cherie

In Memory: Maggie Price

Maggie cared very deeply about teaching people to paint, believing that anybody who wanted to learn could learn. Her husband and painting partner, Bill Canright, put it this way: “Her desire was to continue sharing things of beauty and showing others how to do the same.” As a way to honor her legacy and her commitment to new artists, IAPS has created a perpetual award in her name. The Maggie Price Award of Excellence for an Emerging Artist will be given at each IAPS Exhibition, beginning with the 2013 Convention this June.

If you or your art society wish to honor Maggie with a contribution to the fund, you can donate online at the IAPS website. Or, you can send a check contribution to my attention (please make out your check to IAPS and write “Maggie Price Award” on the memo line) at:

F+W Media / Pastel Journal
Attn: Anne Hevener / Maggie Price Award
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me at Anne.Hevener@fwmedia.com.

Maggie will be dearly missed by a great many people, including all of us at Pastel Journal and North Light Books who were fortunate to get to work with her and to call her friend.

Before committing to painting full-time in 1983, Meyer had a successful career as a corporate and tax attorney, and was an active member of the Denver community. He will be greatly missed by family and friends, and by so many in the pastel community and by anyone fortunate enough to be acquainted with him and his wonderful work.

The following pastels of seaport cities were featured in the August 2005 issue of Pastel Journal.

Reflections of Mykonos (pastel) by Milton Meyer

Venetian Red (pastel) by Milton Meyer

Reflections of Portofino (pastel) by Milton Meyer

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This showcase of art can be seen in the April issue of Pastel Journal, which is making its way out to subscribers this week (you can get a copy here or look for the issue on newsstands beginning March 12).

To see the top five prizewinning pastels, check out this gallery of Grand Prize Award Winners. But, first, check my informal rundown of a few fun numeric facts from this year’s competition:

• Total number of entries: 3,170.

• Percentage of entries by category: 43% Landscape & Interior; 22% Portrait & Figure; 14% Animal & Wildlife; 14% Still Life & Floral; and 7% Abstract & Non-Objective.

• Number of countries represented among the winners: 9. These include Australia, Russia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Iran, Italy and India, in addition to the United States.

• Total value of prizes awarded: $17,800 ($10,000 cash plus $7,800 worth of pastels and papers from our longtime sponsor, Jack Richeson & Co., Inc.).

Congratulations to all the Pastel 100 award winners and honorable mentions! And our thanks to everyone for sharing your best work with us again this year!

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Everything Is Good (pastel) by Stan Sperlak

Discovering New Ways to Paint with Pastel, Level 1, Sperlak’s four-week-long online course offered through Artists Network University, begins today. Over the course of the sessions, you’ll learn pastel tips on how to work and paint in a vigorous and color-charged way.

Click here to learn more about Stan Sperlak and his online pastel course, and register today!

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Welcome to the newest evolution of the Artists Network blogs. I’m Cherie, the online editor who will bring you doses of inspiration, free step-by-step drawing and painting lessons and more from The Artist’s Magazine, Pastel Journal, Watercolor Artist and North Light Shop each week. I’ve been a part of this sisterhood of art publications for several years, most recently as associate editor of The Artist’s Magazine, where, with great pleasure, I brought interesting stories about artists to our faithful readers. I can’t wait to share more with you here.

Quilted (pastel, 14×13) by Barbara Noonan

A little about me: I not only love art in all of its forms, but I also love artists and all of our unique personalities and talents. To create something from nothing takes creativity and knowledge, and then to share it–what a monumental step. I’m always honored when I see that someone is bold enough to say (literally or symbolically), “I created this, here it is, like it or not.” Of course, we do usually hope that our audience likes it. By showing art to anyone, we share a piece of ourselves, and once it’s in the public we have to let the public own it; to translate its meaning, to disregard or appreciate it. Once it becomes a part of their memory, we have no control. And, that can be freeing.

Of course, it’s also important to study the work of others so that we can learn from and be inspired by it. Great things can come from this, whether you’ve been drawing and painting since you developed motor skills as a toddler, or whether you’ve had many moons to realize that you need art in your life.

Pastelist Barbara Noonan is one such artist who took her first portrait drawing class at 40 years old, when she realized that she had to actively make time for art. Later she discovered the work of Bob Gerbracht, and the rest is history. Noonan’s abstract landscapes are simplified versions of life; slow down, take it easy, they say. Her painting Quilted (above; pastel, 14×13) is one example. Time is on your side, it says to me.

Noonan’s work is featured in the February issue of Pastel Journal, available at North Light Shop. Get even more pastel instruction and inspiration when you get your copy of the 2012 Pastel Journal Annual CD, included in our Successful Pastels Value Pack that’s currently 20% off. It’s an opportunity for you to slow down, take it easy; close the door to your studio space and paint as you continue to learn.

Until next time,
Cherie

Plus, you’ll learn how to paint a portrait and capture character with seven pastel techniques by Z.L. Feng, how to limit your palette and expand your color expertise, and how to pursue an arts residency.

One never knows when an outing is going to spark some painting inspiration. Pastel Journal will help you be ready when it does. Click here to order your February issue.

The staff of Pastel Journal wishes you a wonderful holiday season and a new year full of painting inspiration!

• Bonus article: 3 Easy Steps You Can Take to Learn to Paint

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The Journey (pastel, 12×19) by Richard McKinley

When our artistic efforts are to be publicly displayed, craftsmanship and technical mastery of the individual medium is required: Otherwise, gibberish and nonsense will be the outcome, resulting in a failure to communicate. Since all of us are the sum total of our experiences and no two of us see and hear things in quite the same way, our artistic expressions will either be cheered or jeered depending upon the audience. This leads most artists to pursue study and practice throughout their artistic lifetime. As important as this educational focus may be, it’s imperative that we be reminded of why we paint.

The Therapeutic Nature of Art: Many years ago, I was fortunate to be part of a professional group of artists who were having a discussion, after a long day of en plein air painting, on why we painted. As the discussion travelled around the table, many practical and philosophical reasons were shared. One comment has always stood out and had a profound effect on my own personal perspective. The artist stated, “The day I realized that no matter if I never sold another painting, never got into another exhibition, or never won another prize, I would still paint. It is the day I really started painting.” This simple statement pointed out that as much as the physical body requires certain nutrients to survive, so does the human soul. Painting, just like many of the arts, is therapeutic. It provides a conduit to emotional release. This is well demonstrated in how painting is being utilized today as a means of therapy and rehabilitation for traumatized individuals, such as soldiers returning from war.

As the United States mourns the tragic events of the past week, I am again reminded of the therapeutic qualities the arts provide. Orators will speak, authors will write, musicians will play, and artists will paint. Personally, I have no answers. There are no words I can find that are capable of communicating the profound grief I feel for the loved ones of those lost. All I can do is add a voice to the chorus by allowing my emotions to flow through my painting. I encourage all of you to do the same. It feeds our collective soul.

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