Spunky (and the workshop)

"Spunky"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  click here to bid

I've decided to post my last workshop demo first, since my first workshop demo was sold. At least this fellow has a chance on the auction for a little while.

We had a fun and educational 3 days up in Breckenridge, Texas. It was a small but vibrant and talented group! Tailoring my instruction to the majority of the group who had very little or no experience with pastel, I pulled a couple of exercises out of my head that I'm sure were influenced by various other workshops and classes I've attended over the years. I didn't really have a plan so I was kind of just winging it.

Our first exercise on Friday was a color-layering practice, which I hoped would have multiple benefits. We took 3 light, 3 medium and 3 dark pastels each in a warm, neutral and cool color, and layered them in stages dark, to medium, to light, on various colored papers.

It was still amazing to me how different some colors will look next to other colors, and especially depending on the color and value of the surface, even though I knew this to be true. I hadn't actually done this sort of exercise since college (and back then I really didn't know what I was doing!)

This also helped the students get a feel for how pastel colors can layer up (and then we tried some darks over some lights so they could see how that wasn't so attractive.) But mostly it was good to let them play with making marks and handling the pastels without any pressure to create a finished image.

When we were done with this, we did a 'limited strokes' painting followed by some timed minis (a' la Carol Marine!) I'll show those results on my next post!

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