Oils and Pastels by Margaret Dyer

I'd feel remiss as a marketer of my work if I didn't mention this. "101 South" won Best of Show at the Southeastern Pastel Society Juried Members' Exhibition, juried by Marc Hanson, whose incredible work you must see ( http://marchansonart.com), and whom I met last night. A very nice guy. I'm honored and humbled he selected mine. Thank you, Marc.

Well, I'm recovered. I think. I got back on the 7th of July and had to hit the ground running. I edit the newsletter for the Southeastern Pastel Society, which was to be edited and published as soon as I got home. It's also the time of our annual exhibition, for which I create the show catalog. So I didn't have time to recover from my trip, being up all hours--for days-- on my computer. Then it took me a couple of weeks to pay bills, catch up on emails, do laundry, catch up on lost sleep. I'm only just now feeling like I can function at normal speed again. I think I'll think again next time I'm asked to commit to being out of town for a month. But...France was magical. The artists who took my classes made it that much more so. I will treasure the memory of every face I had the honor to work and play with. If any of you think it'd be fun to join me at future workshops there, please do. Kippy will somehow make you feel like you're her very best friend by t...

Today is my last day in France (yes, I'm still here--one week after the last of my students left). I woke to a glorious morning with the sun exploding into my room and a symphony of bird song. I'll spend the day packing my bags and running errands, like taking a trip to the boulangerie/patisserie in the adjacent village for a thank-you gift for Madam De LeHaye, who has ironed any article of clothing I left too long in the laundry room. I've done a lousy job of blogging this time around. There was so much to write about, and so many pictures to upload, but that process was extremely time-consuming on my old PowerBook G4 laptop, and there was always a rush to be somewhere else. What did I not write about? During this past week, Kippy and Jerome took me on a 4 hour drive to Jerome's grandmother's centuries old home (6 photos on top) in the Loire Valley for several nights, which is another reason why I've been so quiet--no internet. A ten minute drive from his famil...

We had 2 Katies; one each week. This is Katie #2.

All students but Alice stayed with us one week; Alice stayed two weeks. That's why you see so much more of Alice's work.

The next few posts on my blog will be showing some of the work painted by the students in the class. Here's Susie:

On Monday , our model, Rozsa (that's the proper spelling), left us. What a sweetie. We miss her already. The rest of us worked in the studio from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Meg spent her last day with us also. Tuesday , another long day in the studio. The students worked so diligently, they even preferred to decline a last excursion so they could spend more time in the studio. We planned a plein air session for the evening; Kippy packed a picnic dinner, with wine of course. Some of us went with Kippy in the van to scout out a good painting location, the rest followed with bikes as soon as they knew where to go. We found a charming little town 5 miles away, with sunflower fields in the distance. In case you non-artists don't know what plein air is, it's painting outside. 45 minutes after setting up our easels, 30 minutes after the bike-riders arrived, thunder and lightening sent us packing, and frantically peddling home, where we spread the picnic on the patio table. The stor...

Another bike ride to the Seine, another lunch on the patio, another trip to Paris, another dinner on the patio, with conversation lasting till almost midnight. What a life. I have to catch you up on the past few days. I don't know why this year it is so difficult to write; last year it seems I was able to do it every night. On our way to the Musee D'Orsay on Sunday, we stopped at a little village's brocant (Kippy has an innate sense where they are--we were allowed a quick run-through, so we could get to Paris on time), and almost all of us found something to buy...Kippy an oil landscape and a couple of glass salieres, little pich-pots for salt and pepper; Alice, a hand-painted ceramic saliere from Normandy; and I found two original graphite drawings of French scenes from 1930. FOR 10 EUROS. We made it to the Musee D'Orsay, for those new students in the class. We visited the Musee Marmottan to see Berthe Morrisot's work; we were surprised to discover a retrospective ...