Indholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2018 i The Pastel Journal

“I like pastel because it’s instantaneous and full of beauty,” says Grimaldi. “I can be direct, intense or delicate and engage without hesitation. Waiting for paint to dry breaks my flow, but using pastels always feels expansive and exciting. It makes me happy. When I paint, I’m lost in timelessness and feel innocent, somehow more dear to myself. Pastel painting moves me in a way that helps me to appreciate myself.” Grimaldi’s favored pastels include Schmincke, Sennelier and Henri Roché, to which she sometimes adds PanPastels, and she’s particularly keen on the use of iridescents and metallics. Highly experimental, Grimaldi uses a multitude of both traditional surfaces, such as Richeson Pastel Board and various sanded papers, as well as nontraditional surfaces, including metallic photo papers, raw silk, linen, cotton and…

PABLO PICASSO SAID, “EVERY CHILD IS AN ARTIST. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Children paint for themselves, not for others. When they’re playing and following the basic needs of their own expression, children don’t need anyone to tell them that their work is good or beautiful. They live and create in the moment, without concern. Adults, however, seem to freeze at the sight of a blank page, fearing the unknown and sometimes not knowing where to begin. I’ve found that most students resist the playful exercises and exploration that working in a sketchbook provides. Beginners get frustrated that their drawings look awkward. Seasoned artists become critical, seeking a measure of success, and don’t allow themselves to fool around or make mistakes. We’re all…

Recent mixed-media works by Mira M. White accomplish a heroic feat by expressing intangible ideas using only essential cues. They’re vigorous, engaging and contemplative. They’re simultaneously pensive and compelling; universal yet highly personal in message; artworks of poetic power, masterfully made with the stuff of playful insight, self-awareness and keen perception. Discovery and Transformation Although White has created landscapes and other representational subject matter, the majority of her work has more recently evolved from a subject-driven to a process-driven art form. Nowadays, White loves the excitement and sheer adventure of discovering things—paint qualities, forms, themes, concepts—while she’s working. She’s keenly interested in seeing what combinations of materials can do. “Even as a child, I felt that there was always something of an essence to be discovered,” she says. Impressive in…

I wanted to create floating frames for my 6x6-inch aerial “minis,” thinking they’d show off the pieces nicely, and also be reminiscent of the small windows on a passenger plane. You often see floating frames used on oil panels, but with pastels, there’s the added complication of needing to put them behind glass. I decided to approach the frame as a modified shadow-box. After searching online and in frame shops, I found some simple black wooden frame stock, 2 inches deep. I ordered 8x8 frames in which to float my 6x6 paintings, which allows for a 1-inch border on all sides. I constructed a box within the frame using 3/8-inch black foam core as backing and spacers to hold the artwork away from the glass in much the same way…

THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON IS HOSTING the exhibition, “French Pastels, Treasures From the Vault,” through January 6, 2019. I worked with the museum this past summer to develop supplemental materials to make the process and implements of pastel painting more accessible to museum visitors. For the exhibit’s “art cart,” the curators and I wanted to show the range of materials and techniques used by 19th-century pastelists, so I decided to take it to the next level and show the visitors by example. It was a simple idea: Take a still life with three pears, and create one painting each in the styles of Degas, Cassatt and Millet. The aim was to show the variety in style and approach possible with pastels. That all sounded fine in theory, until…

IT SOMETIMES TAKES CONVINCING THAT an entire workshop devoted to composition is worthwhile. Most students are more concerned about the end of the painting process—those sparkling finishing touches. But when I teach my Composition Boot Camp workshop, I focus intensively on what I believe is the most difficult, yet most important, stage of the painting process: the beginning. I find that most students either rush through this composition stage or bypass it altogether. The result is that they fall prey to myriad bad habits that inevitably work their way into their paintings. The good news, though, is that there are indeed learnable skills that any artist can master to address these potential pitfalls successfully. Following is a list of five common bad habits that appear in a painting when particular…

The new Degas-inspired video series with Desmond O’Hagan consists of four separate videos. With demonstrations of figural work in charcoal, and charcoal and pastel, you’ll learn more about Degas’ unique techniques for painting skin tones, hair and backgrounds. O’Hagan also discusses how the lessons he has learned from Degas—about color, line, contrast and design—impact his own work in a painting demonstration of a Paris street scene. For more information, visit artistsnetwork.com/store.…

Diane Reed Sawyer received her bachelor’s of fine arts from The Boston Museum School in association with Tufts University in 1979, but it would take another three decades before she’d begin working in her current medium of choice—pastel. “I was exposed to oil and watercolor at art school, but the curriculum didn’t include pastel, and I didn’t try it until 2008,” the Milton, Mass.-based artist says. “I ran into Jeanne Rosier Smith [featured in the August 2018 issue of Pastel Journal], who was demonstrating her pastel work and selling some pieces at an open studio. I was intrigued by what she was doing; it seemed really fresh and interesting, and I thought, ‘I’m going to give this a try.’ I started studying with her, and I’ve never looked back.” Realism…

A MEMBER OF THE CHOCTAW NATION BY BIRTH, Susan Ross Grimaldi, M.Ed., was recognized at an early age as a visionary by her Choctaw grandmother, who in turn taught her. Grimaldi was initiated as a healer at the age of 19. Today, she’s a Native American shaman who has participated in thousands of healings and is world renowned for her invaluable fieldwork in cultural preservation of shamanic traditions from the Amazon Basin, in Brazil, to remote regions of Tuva, in eastern Siberia, and Mongolia. She also spent 17 years on a project in northeast China and Inner Mongolia helping to revive shamanism. She has authored articles, been the subject of radio interviews and, with her partner, John R. Lawrence, Ph.D., filmed documentaries on shamanism. A State of Rapture From an…

When Kari Tirrell was growing up in the ‘70s, there wasn’t much “good TV,” so drawing was her entertainment. She enjoyed drawing people and animals, and honed her self-taught skills using charcoal and ink. “It was kind of like meditation,” she says. “I got into a Zen place.” These days, that place results in stunningly realistic renderings of ordinary items often arranged in playful jumbles: toy cars, game pieces, toys, holiday ornaments, baking ingredients and more. JUMBLE PAINTINGS Tirrell’s first attempt at these chock-a-block “jumble paintings,” as she calls them, was inspired by a box of Christmas ornaments. She enjoyed the challenge of assembling a pleasing composition that appeared haphazard. The subjects for these jumbled compositions went on to include toy cars and trains—even jigsaw puzzle pieces. Her latest subjects…