CC's Pastel are on exhibit at SAG 5 '16

CC decided to exhibit some of her Pastel beach scenes at the Seacoast Artists Gallery this month.

Charleston Series on Exhibition 8 '15

Charleston Series

Got my new Charleston Series hung in the SAG gallery today. I am pleased with how it looks.

Charleston Series Complete 8 '15

"The Good Life" 10 "w' x 8 "h pastel

I've  finally finished all of the  paintings of Charleston's landmarks that I started working on at the end of May.  My goal when I began this project was to have eight paintings completed, framed and ready to exhibit by the middle of July.  

St. Phillips on Church Street 8"w x 10 h pastel

I had four of them completed before we went to our family reunion in Sedona,

Chalmers Charmers  10"w x 8"h pastel

and had plans to paint another four by the first week in July. 

The First Red Dot 8"w x 10"h pastel

 Add another week in for getting them named, framed, and all the paperwork ready for the gallery and I should have been right on schedule for delivery some fresh new artwork to the gallery right at the peak of the summer tourist season. 

Pineapple Fountain 10"w x 8"h pastel

 Well you know what they say about the best laid plans.    I hadn't thought about what a strong impact the trip to Sedona would have on me.   

The Museum on Meeting and Market

Not only was I terribly homesick for the West, I couldn't get the images of Sedona out of my head.

St Michael's on Broad Street 10"w x 8"h pastel

Five paintings of Sedona later, I've finally worked most of Sedona out of my system.  Bruce and I took a day trip to Charleston so I could refill my mind's eye with all of that city's unique charm.  It worked.

Midday in Philadelphia Alley 8"w x 10"h pastel

I was able to  complete the paintings had begun in June, and added four new ones to complete the set. Of course, I will be delivering them to the gallery  a month later than I planned., but the good news is that I have rediscovered how much fun it is to work in pastels.

My Wall at CAG Nov.'12

I have three of my pastels of the local dunes up in the Charleston Artist Guild

More new paintings at Island Art Gallery '11

I took some of my pastel paintings of  low country clouds over to Island Art Gallery in Pawleys Island

Their white driftwood framed pastels  look lovely against the white walls of the gallery.

Doing my homework

My recent pastel workshop reinforced the importance of knowing the value range ot the stick of pastel I am working with.  So I set myself the task of grouping my collection of pastels by colors, and temperature, then sorting them again by value.

A photo of some mid tone sienna color chips against the gray scale. 

It's easy to do with the dark and light ends of the spectrum, but mid values get a little trick.  I wound up making a color chip of each pastel stick, then visually ranking the color chips, then  photographing the chips against a set of known value gray scale sheets.

I used photoshop to remove the color saturation so I could view it in gray tones

 A week later I have a well sorted set of  700  pastel sticks arranged and labeled  by  brand, #, color, and value. And I have a set of color chips with the same information just in case I loose the label and need to figure out where a stick of color belongs.

This is only a portion of  my set.

Greg Barnes Workshop 4 '11

 I  recently attended a three day Greg Barnes pastel  workshop which was held at  the Island Art Gallery on Pawleys Island. The workshop opened as usual with introductions and a verbal review of the equipment that would be used. After which Greg gave us brief demonstration of his pastel painting technique.

The Demonstration on the first day was of painting from a reference photo.   Greg chose a traditional marsh scene from the photos he had brought with him, and proceeded to sketch the scene on his pastel paper with vine charcoal

Then he blocked in the dark tones often smudging the areas to blur and blend the tones.

 Next he put in the  mid tones followed by the lighter shades leaving these more distinct, especially near the focal point.

 Below you can compare the painting with the reference photo.  Obviously Greg is not into slavishly copying the original photo.

Greg then added in the highlights ,  intense tones , and details to finish the piece in less than two hours..

Day two was a lesson in plein air painting.  Actually all three days should have included some plein air work, but the weather didn't cooperate.  The morning of the second day was the only time it didn't pour.

 The subject of the painting was the Island Deli across the parking lot from the Gallery.  The bright red roof was eye catching in the morning sun against the stately old oak tree.

 Greg set up his easel in the parking lot outside the gallery and proceeded to sketch the scene in vine charcoal.

 Then Greg blocked in his colors.  Again he started with the dark tones of the oak, but quickly threw in some of the mid value red so as to have something to judge the other mid tones against.

This is a photo of the painting  when Greg ended the demonstration an hour and a half later.

On day three, it poured, so we were again stuck inside.  Greg decided to show us how to paint with a limited number of colors  

 using a background toned with watercolor .

 As promised, Greg pulled it off beautifully.   The trick, it seems, is in knowing your values well enough to pick the right set of limited colors.

 Each afternoon the class worked on their own paintings, while Greg coached us.  

 Every one's style was different.  From the semi abstract and dreamy painting above,

 

to the dark and moody one above. 

 

There were some highly realistic renditions,

 

and even an attempt to paint the same scene as Greg's original demo.(Below)

Clearly personal style matters.  Both paintings were beautifully rendered, but each was unique.

Street art at the Pawleys Island Art Festival 9"10

Once a year, the Georgetown Cultural Council sponsors a series of events which include drama,  music, dance, literature,  and of course visual arts. This year's series included a mini workshop on how to do chalk painting.

The event was held on the grounds of the historic Litchfield Plantation.

Some of the results were spectacular.

(Above) A Picasso like abstract 

(Below)  A photo realistic portrait

And of course some beach scenes