Indholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2023 i The Pastel Journal

DO IT DIFFERENTLY. Whatever your standard operating procedure, change it; mix up your routine. Work from the outside in instead of the inside out. Try a different surface. Change the surface size or orientation. Flip your work upside down. Move from dark to light instead of light to dark. Paint the reverse image. Just try something different to break the pattern that lulls you into sameness. Usually work small? Try going big! You get the idea. TRY A NEW SUBJECT OR ENVIRONMENT. Are you a landscape painter? Give still life a try. Do you usually paint portraits? Paint a model en plein air. A new subject or environment can bring with it entirely new ways of seeing the world. SET LIMITATIONS. We often think creativity results from greater freedom, but…

The figure of a solitary clamdigger hard at work on the sandbars and salt marshes of the Massachusetts North Shore is one of the most characteristic and beloved sights of the area. It's a trade that has been pursued for centuries with little change, as clams must still be harvested one at a time through considerable manual effort. A clammer must squelch through soft sand and mud in search of the telltale signs of clams—tiny holes left in the sand as the tide recedes. The clammer digs using a large fork, feeling for the clam that lies almost a foot beneath the surface. He must then bend way down to wrest the creature from the mud by hand. As an occupation, it requires time-honored virtues often associated with New Englanders:…

Maybe it's a result of her long career in theatre and dance, but San Diego-based artist Margaret Larlham finds it easy—in fact, necessary—to immerse herself in her environment and respond in the moment to what's around her. She credits the diverse and inspiring surroundings of her home, on the edge of Mission Trails, Calif., with enticing her outside every week to paint its beauty. Larlham is enthusiastic about the scenes on her doorstep. “It's a preserve of wild coastal sage, oak and grassland, with a fugitive river running through it,” she says. “Trails of wildness reach into the built-up housing developments. I'm fascinated by nature's willful resilience and its reclamation of growing spaces—even between cracks on the sidewalk—and am very happy to have daily access to trails through the canyon's…

Adrian Giuliani has made it an intentional daily practice to express gratitude for the people who surround and inspire her. “The most important things in my life are people: my family and friends,” she says. “Therefore, when painting, I choose subjects that relate to my everyday life and the people in it. Each day I say ‘thank you’ out loud for all the people in my life whom I love and who love me. Like a powerful form of prayer, this practice—along with my visualization—has gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life.” Giuliani embraces life's simple, ordinary pleasures: a stroll in the sun shine; a lively, loving phone conversation with her mom; or a laugh with her friends. It's this focus on gratitude and spirituality that…

Baldwin is an Associate Artist with pastel-makers Unison Colour. “Their soft pastels are of exceptional quality, with a beautiful range of subtle tones,” she says. “For paper, I love Fabriano Accademia and Eco, which I buy in large rolls and cut to size. They're 200-gsm and tough enough to endure all my reworkings and erasures. I prefer a smooth surface because I find that specialist papers require too much pastel.” For collages, she uses a variety of materials, including beautiful handmade papers from Nepal, Bhutan, India and the United States. “All are vegan and made with either recycled or sustainably grown materials, including hemp and lokta, which add unique textures to my work,” she says.…

The theme of this year's Pastel Society, U.K., annual exhibition was “Pastel Without Boundaries.” The show ran from May 23 through June 3, at The Mall Galleries, in London, and showcased a series of demonstrations, workshops and live events in addition to the stunning dry-media works on display. The organization, founded in 1898, has broadened the scope of entries in recent years to include artists beyond its members and to add new prizes for emerging artists. This year, the Yoshimoto Award—given to an outstanding work in any dry medium by a non-member—went to Shadow Crossing (opposite, top). Artist Julie Lawrence said the painting represents a passage of woodland she encounters on her daily walk. “The image portrays a momentary transi tional perception of my own shadow crossing through the woodland…

Major life transitions are never easy, but they're often necessary for growth. After nearly two decades of higher education and practice as a naturopathic doctor—squeezing art into my free time as best I could—I finally committed to making art my primary profession last November. Granted, I didn't retire entirely from medicine; I still see patients two half-days per week. Still, after months of planning, and after hiring an associate doctor to manage most of my patient roster, I was finally able to make the shift to full-time artist. Something's Gotta Give To be clear, the idea to change careers wasn't hatched and enacted during those few months last fall. I'd been working toward this scenario even before I'd graduated from naturopathic medical school in 2014! Admittedly, it may sound silly…

Abstraction can be defined as the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. I've been painting professionally for 36 years and, even though I'd describe my art as representational, I've always thought of the imagery as a combination of abstract shapes. At the start of a painting, I look for the important dark shapes with which to begin, and this becomes my road map for the shapes that follow. Whether the subject is an urban scene, still life, figure, landscape or interior, within my interpretation is an element of an abstraction. So, I'm familiar with thinking abstractly. Recently, though, I've been exploring abstraction in ways that are pushing the work further away from representational imagery. It's a…

Values are the subtle shades that range from dark to light in a painting or draw ing. They're what give an artwork the illusion of depth and realism. Artists often spend a great deal of time on color choices and color the ory, but value is the real key to success when it comes to painting in a realistic style. Values do for art what gram mar does for language. Without good grammar, words don't hold together to form cohesive sen tences and communicate an idea. The same holds true for values. Patterns of lights and darks, and subtle gradations between the two, describe the shape and form of what you're painting. When good values are present, you can stand about 6 feet away from a piece, and it will…

John Henry Twachtman (18531902) was one of this country's finest Impressionist painters. Like many American artists in the 19th century, Twachtman's education required an enormous amount of travel. He first studied art in his hometown of Cincinnati, then continued his schooling in Munich and later, Paris. He moved throughout Europe, painting in Italy and Holland. Back in the U.S., he maintained a studio in New York City and traveled along the northeast coast. As Twachtman journeyed, he recorded his impressions of both rural and urban landscapes. In the late 1880s, the artist found his ideal locale, not in Paris or Italy, but while visiting artist J. Alden Weir at his farm, in Branchville, Conn. He liked the area so much that he rented a house nearby in 1888, and he…

Several times a year, I load my minivan with art supplies and head off to a location I've either enjoyed painting previously, or a place I've always wanted to paint. My travels over the past year included a trip to Palm Springs, Calif., and two sojourns to New Mexico—a state I've loved ever since I was a kid. The first trip was a solo drive to the annual Plein Air Convention and Exposition that was held north of Santa Fe. Staying in a charming, historic adobe near Nambé, I could roll out of bed each morning, grab some tea and fruit and be in my car on the lookout for paintable vistas within minutes. Likewise, each afternoon, as a field painter for the convention, I was able to visit different…

When Margaret Larlham's career as a theatre professor at San Diego State University came to an end in 2018, she knew that she wanted to redirect her time and energy to her painting and work on taking her skills to new levels. Happily, years earlier she had stumbled upon a pastel exhibition that had sparked her interest in the medium. Soon after moving to San Diego from South Africa, “I wandered into an exhibition by the San Diego Pastel Society, in the Spanish Village in Balboa Park,” she says. “I was so impressed and joined the society. “Over the years, the circle of pastel artists that has inspired me has grown,” she continues. “I always recommend the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) biennial convention to people for its astounding…

Often, when we try out new ideas, there are unexpected outcomes. I've found, for example, that the time I've spent working more abstractly has also enhanced the work I do in a representational style. If I feel a painting has become overly detailed, I start to imagine the abstract shapes, and it tends to loosen my strokes.…

These 19th-century, wooden photo development frames that I found at a flea market have worked their way into a number of my paintings. I find them endlessly useful in supporting the narrative and design in my symbolic still lifes. I love the see-through quality that turns them into portals. Typically, my compositions evolve in my mind, but for The Pink Lady Levitates, I started by making a quick line sketch with a few notes. You can see a number of changes between the sketch and final pastel. Because the “levitating” apple was positionedn almost dead center in the composi tion, I decided to broaden the apple theme and create balance with more visual weight on the left. Not wanting to throw out the idea of the vase from the sketch,…