The Colorist

At The Pastel Studio of Canada

2012-06-02T04:13:00.003-07:00

Large workshop space!

I am pleased and proud to be teaching at Canada's exclusive purveyor of high-end pastel materials, The Pastel Studio of Canada, in Cambridge, ON. You will find Diane Townsend and Roche open stocks and sets, just to mention two of the brands carried.

Yesterday I set up the space for my workshop, and took a short break to walk around beautiful, old Cambridge and Galt, with its Scottish stone-mason built structures and the river. Of course it rained like mad, and yet I took an old fold of paper and a pencil and did up some proper sketches as references to paint. Back in the studio, with the proprietor Edward, I created a pastel scene of Galt in the Rain.

Galt in the Rain

@8" x 10"

Pastel on Lava Grit, Mounted

Casey Klahn

Pastel Studio, Canada

2012-05-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Pastel Studio Art Supplies

I'll be at the Pastel Studio shop in Ontario, Canada, this weekend. The See Differently workshop participants will be making new art - never seen before in the history of the world. It is a thrilling experience for me, and I am always inspired by these classes.

You may see a report via iPhone, but otherwise I won't have my laptop with me on this trip. See you soon.

Pastel Studio

Workshops

Carole Buschmann - WBM!

2012-05-29T05:45:00.002-07:00

Time for another important episode of When Bloggers Meet! Here are Carole Buschmann, who blogs at Color Creates, and myself. We have followed each other's blogs for a long time. She was one of several bloggers who participated in my Denver See Differently workshop, taught two weeks ago.

As you can see, there really are people at the other end of the inter-tunnel, and it is wonderful to actually meet. My previous WBM post was here.

I dug around for that Starbucks cup in Denver, but it was just a prop.

Memorial Day

2012-05-26T11:12:00.002-07:00

It was a tremendous honor to participate in creating this memorial at Ft Logan Cemetery, Denver. This is dedicated to the men of the Tenth Mountain Division (including my dad) who fought in WW II. I was privileged to render the climber and the mountains seen in the granite and the marble faces of the stone. Presented in 2009, it is a place to honor our fathers who had the task of seizing one island in the Aleutian chain, and countless mountain redoubts in north Italy. My dad remembered that the German bunkers were also cast into granite mountains; the major ones had walls 200 feet thick!

Photo: Ken Elliott.

Canola Field Trip

2012-05-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

It's too bad I don't have any subject matter around here to paint. Just joking. I have been trying to get out and paint these canola fields in May for nine years, and finally made the effort.

Pastels Available, unframed. $500 each/ $900 both.

When Bloggers Meet - Cynthia Haase

2012-05-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

Cindy Haase & I meet at the Denver Workshop

This edition of When Bloggers Meet is brought to you by the talented artist Cynthia Haase & myself. There were four of us blog-heads there, and we caused much of the trouble that occurred.

Cynthia Haase Fine Art

What Are You Really Selling?

Cynthia's Blog

Editor's note: In spite of the presence of three Starbucks cups in this photo, DO NOT go to Denver looking for Starbucks. They are few and far between. Sorry to be so brutal, Denver, but...

Author's note: There is no editor.

Demo in Denver

2012-05-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

I Demo in Denver

At the last minute while packing for the trip to Denver, my new grays arrived on the doorstep: Thunderstorm grays and a set of gray Diane Townsend Terrages! I didn't really need them, but I opened up my luggage and crammed them in - I wanted the "jazz" that comes with getting really yummitudinous sticks. I felt that energy going into my demos, and really had fun making three pictures for the class. This big violet one sold, but I was the most jazzed by another one that depicted the urban energy of Denver metro.

Denver Metro on the easel

@ 7" x 9"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Denver Workshop Report

2012-05-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Take the oath to paint your best

My student artists had a great time at the Denver workshop this weekend learning about painting and having fidelity to their own ideas. I enjoyed seeing them creating pastels and paintings that were new and fresh.

In Denver, With a Trivia Question

2012-05-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

Me posing in front of a Robert Motherwell. He & I share one thing that few people know about. Can you guess what that is?

The Denver workshop, See Differently-Authenticity & Your Art, is all set to go this weekend, and I am enjoying a visit with my host, Ken Elliott.

I will report back here, soon.

Multi Tree

2012-05-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

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Multi Tree

@ 8" x 5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Forest Glen

2012-05-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Forest Glen

4.5" x 5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Dusk Horizon

2012-05-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

Dusk Horizon

3.75" x 9.75"

Pastel on la Carte

Casey Klahn

Simplicity.

Be self-limiting.

Work fast.

Don't think! See!

Violet Horizon

2012-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Violet Horizon

@ 4" x 6"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Re-imagined Plein Air

2012-05-07T07:39:00.001-07:00

Forest Interior

@5" x 5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

The Subject Bucket List

2012-05-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Violet Mountain

3.5" x 3.75"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Because of my personal history with the mountains and mountaineering, it has been my hip-pocket goal to do a series of alpine scenes. I wonder when I'll start that project?

Currently I am working on Bainbridge Island scenes, and have begun to do barn interiors. About a year ago I started the shoulders of the butte series. Then, the Hoquiam River series is ongoing. Also on my plate for the near term are some plein air works. Oh, don't forget Italy - I am revisiting my old Italy pastels to re-imagine them, and also pouring over old photos I took there. The other day I took a "drive around" the Florentine hills via Street View, and might try to do some practice works from that. Then, there is my return to doing figures.

Do I have enough subject matter to work with?

Munch's Scream Speaks Loudly

2012-05-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Follows is a re-posting of my essay on The Artist's Ideas, illustrated by The Scream, Edward Munch.

Edvard Munch
The Scream, 1893
o/c, tempera & pastel

A work of art can't be questioned or dismissed. Saul Bellow.

The obscure word ethos has a different meaning today than it did seventy years ago, and it has traveled a malleable path since the days of Aristotle. Whereas, today, it is a corporate creed, it formerly held a deeper meaning. Pre-war artists owned the word - it was the artist's ethos. My 1936 Webster's dictionary has the following:

Webster: From the Greek, ethos, ἔθος, character. The moral, ideal or universal element in a work of art as distinguished from that which is emotional in its appeal or subjective.

How do the artist's ideas exhibit themselves in an artwork? Is it important for an artist to express an ethos through the making of art?

We have been considering The Artist's Ideas, with these previous posts:
Have Ideas
Quotes - The Artist's Ideas
The Inner Meaning
The Artist's Ideas
Paint Better Now

The Artist's Ethos.

The Greeks saw ethos as the first proof of debate, and it had to do with trusting the moral competence of the rhetorician.Fast-forward to our concerns and the artist's ethos. Let's unpack the definitions of moral, ideal and universal elements.

The Moral Function of Art.
Webster describes a moral element in a given artwork, which is, by definition, an illumination of right or wrong. As concerns the formal parts of art, there is no right or wrong. "There is no must in art because art is free," Wassily Kandinsky. So, we are left with artworks that reveal a moral quality intended by the artist, such as in the case of Sacred Art. See below some artworks that reveal strong moral qualities in a broader context. See The Sistine Chapel for Sacred Art.

John Dewey said that “Art is more moral than moralities.” Artist and blogger Katherine A. Cartwright is reading Dewey's important 1934 book, Art as Experience, and hosting a community discussion on The Moral Function of Art. See here, here and here, and remember to read the comment fields.

Here is the "see below." For my part of the discussion at Katherine's blog, I have been illustrating the moral function of art by identifying individual artworks that I see as strong moral forces in the canon of Western art. Blogger/artist Linda W. Roth had the idea first, and she chose Edward Munch's The Scream for its moral content. I think she's right on with that, and I thought of Andrew Wyeth's Groundhog Day, and Willem deKooning's Woman 1. These artworks are linked below.

The following opens a window into Dewey's thinking: Art is morally powerful because it is indifferent to moral praise and blame (loosely quoted). Do you agree?

Ideals - The Artist's Ideas.

Notice that the Websters definition relates to a work of art, and not the group known as artists. My understanding of "the ideal" is that an artwork must, to be true to the artist's ethos, reflect his ideas. See these quotes on The Artist's Ideas.

Universal Elements.

Art is a universal mode of language. John Dewey. Philosophers will tell you that language is wanting in descriptive power - it falls short of expressing what man is able to think. Art is a huge bridge in "speaking" to mankind aught words.

Edvard Munch, The Scream.
Andrew Wyeth, Groundhog Day.
Willem de Kooning, Woman 1.

Ethos at Wikipedia.
John Dewey, Art As Experience.

Inversion Dusk

2012-05-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Inversion Dusk

5.25" x 7.8"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

This was one of my demos at Morristown, New Jersey. I resolved it at home in the studio.

Riva del Garda: Car, Street Sign, Sunshine and People

2012-05-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Looking South in Riva

10.25" x 7.25"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

White Facade

2012-04-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

White Facade, Sketch

@ 8" x 5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

All Water is Abstract

2012-04-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

Forest Pond

Bloedel Reserve, Washington

@6.5" x 10"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Click on image to see the full crop.

An Italian Villa

2012-04-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Villa Through the Trees

8.8" x 7.2"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Pastel Studio Canada

2012-04-25T07:51:00.001-07:00

I will be teaching the workshop, See Differently, Authenticity & Your Art, June 2-3, 2012, in Cambridge, Ontario at the Pastel Studio Canada.

Visit the web sight of Pastel Studio Canada here, to sign up. Workshops page. Openings are few.

Violet Solutions

2012-04-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

Violet in the Treeline

9.5" x 6.1"
Pastel

Casey Klahn
sold

Windbreak

2012-04-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

Windbreak

5.1" x 10.7"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Sometimes History

2012-04-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

...in its simplest form is also the most revealing. I mean the under-story: the secrets hidden behind the veil of time. You cannot know the way a person in the past felt or thought without a bit of digging. The gold nugget lies in catching a glimpse of the heart.

I am one of those artists who loves history, and especially if I have a touch-point, or some connection, with the past. The more distant the connection is to the past, the sweeter.

1865-1906: Henri Roché (father) takes over the "Maison"

It is exciting to deliver this link from La Maison du Pastel, in Paris. Nobody else has the rich history of the pastel company of M. Henri Roche. What is history, without character? These sticks have that, and I am finding it out for myself by trying out 15 of the sticks in my studio.

I am a very intuitive pastelist, or I try to be. I don't go forward very scientifically, or in an organized fashion. How do I find the new sticks? It is an emotional response. The range of textures and the purity of the hues in these pastels are not found in any other stick that I have tried. They are the secret weapon; the game changer in any picture. My respect for what will happen when I use them is estimable, because they offer the opportunity for very high intensity. If you haven't observed by now, let me tell you that intensity is the focus of my contemporary work.

There you have it. The circle has been completed: the past can speak to the present, if you will just listen quietly.

boîte Degas

Images: the website of La Maison du Pastel.