I returned home last night after teaching a 3 day workshop in Chattanooga. Wow. What a community of artists. If I could, I'd sell my house, pack my bags, and head up there today to spend more time with them, and to live in one of those wonderful converted warehouses, those exquisite lofts in which so many of the artists I met are living.
Thank you Mimi, for initiating the workshop, for your incredible hospitality, for letting me feel a part of your creative family for 3 days, for exposing me to your beautiful drawings, and for just allowing me the honor to get to know you and John.
And thank you Cynthia, for the use of your great place at the YarnWorks, and for all the work you did to make this happen.
And thank you, Angie, Mary, and everyone at River Gallery in Chattanooga, for the lovely reception. And thank-you, Paula Ford (see her link at right), a pastelist from WetCanvas.com, who stopped in at the reception with her husband Sunday night. It was great meeting you both.
Now, I promised all the artists, after conversations during the workshop, that I'd provide a place for everyone to share the artists' names and websites they mentioned, since there's no way any of us could remember them all. And this is how we'll do it. I'll create a list, "Web Sites to See", on the right side of this blog. Any of you who wants to add a link, just comment to this post (there's a place below, where you can click to comment--and no, Jane, this is still not a chat room). I'll add your links to "Web Sites to See".
I've started with a few: Milt Kobyashi (Carylon and I talked about his work), and Paula Ford (from the pastel forum at WetCanvas.com). Let's hear from Mimi about her printmaking professor and anybody else who wants to contribute...
I've also added links to those artists in the workshop, whose web sites I could find. If I've overlooked anybody, please let me know.
I can't wait to hear from you.
The images above: the Chattanooga workshop, and the cover of Mimi Herbert's beautiful book, "Voices of the Puppet Masters-The Wayang Golek Theater of Indonesia", available on Amazon.
Hello Margaret!
ReplyDeleteI agree - what a wonderful workshop we had! I learned so very much and sincerely appreciate your talent, patience and encouragement. You were able to adapt your coaching to benefit a beginner like me as well as the experienced artists around me, and that's the mark of a truly terrific teacher.
It was obvious there was greatness all around me from looking at all the other easels for three days. But taking a look at the websites you listed here of my workshop friends shows me how talented they truly are! It was a real treat to see their finished works.
The online resources I talked about during your workshop were primarily those that I found most helpful in learning about different brands of pastels that I wanted to start with and try. I may not know how to paint with pastels yet, but I do like to comparison shop! So here goes. :-))
In my opinion, the website that has the best color swatches online where you can get a good idea of the colors included in various pastel sets you might purchase is a store in Rochester NY that sells on Amazon and their own website: http://www.fineartstore.com
Wetcanvas.com also has a great thread with lots of pastel set photos uploaded by members who purchased them. To save everybody from a long search, here's the direct link:
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3960060#post3960060
For most pastel sets they sell, Jerry's Artarama (in Raleigh, NC) lists the numbers of the colors included in each set in what they call 'Tech Notes'. When you're on a particular set's sale page, just click on the little 'Tech Notes' image and a smaller window will open up that lists the color numbers in that set. I found this listing helpful when trying to figure out the difference between 2-3 different sets. By comparing the numbers you can see the overlap in colors that might exist between sets you are considering purchasing. The direct link to Jerry's is http://www.jerrysartarama.com - look for their 'Pastel Center' at the top of the page.
Now for the different pastel 'brand' samplers I got from Dakota Pastels in Washington. They ship orders like clockwork, and pack pastels so well that they never break even though they have to make a cross-country trip to me in North Carolina. I took advantage of the 'SAMPLERS' they offer to help me decide on the first small sets I wanted to try. Their Samplers include 17 different brands of pastels to try out, one each of Schmincke, Great American, Sennelier, Unison, Diane Townsend Soft & Terrages, Terry Ludwig, Daler-Rowney, Girault, Mount Vision, Rembrandt, Art Spectrum, Winsor Newton, Holbein, NuPastel, Faber-Castell Polychromos and Cretacolor. I chose the blues, but you can also get the samplers in darks, earth colors, greens, greys and reds.
Dakota also offers a pastel paper sampler including an 8.5 x 11 sheet each of Art Spectrum Colourfix, Colourfix SuperTooth, Colourfix Board, Dakota Wallis Board, Ersta P400, La Carte, Multimedia Artboard, Sansfix, St.-Armand Sabertooth, Townsend, Velour, Velour Board, Wallis Pro, Wallis Museum and Wallis Grey. Yup, I bought this sampler too. That's why I knew a tiny bit about the different paper brands even though I'd not painted on all of them yet! :-D
The Samplers and color charts page is the very last link down the left column of categories - here's the direct link: http://www.dakotapastels.com/index_colorcharts.shtml
I think those are all the pastel resources I mentioned when we were in Chattanooga.
Again, Margaret, thank you so much for an incredible workshop. I hope to come back through another workshop with you 6-12 months from now and absorb everything like a sponge once again when I'm at a different stage in my painting.
Karen
I second Karen's comments. What a fun time and great learning experience since I don't do figures often. I see golfers daily from my back porch and now they are much more intriguing after watching their antics on the green. May have to try catching them with my zoom lens and putting them on paper.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan
Ditto the above comments on the workshop. Margaret, you are very generous in sharing your talent and insights with us. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteJudy