Last Saturday, July 5th, one of the FREE weekend demos at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store was with Landscape Artist Jerry Baldwin . Jerry was demonstrating some of his tips for painting Landscapes with Pastels .

First, Jerry likes to pre-paint in watercolor on Wallis Sanded Paper , the basic shapes, and colors he sees in the landscape he will be doing in pastel. It has excellent “tooth” for the pastel and heavy enough not to buckle when the watercolor paint is applied. The colors are not necessarily the colors that will be used for the shapes in pastel, for instance the color of the sky in watercolor for the demo was yellow.

Working from a photo, Jerry applied his pastels, working over the sanded surface from his trays of pastels. The trays are actually black Styrofoam trays that Jerry got from his butcher. They work especially well because they are light weight, soft surfaced (don’t chip at the pastels) and since these are black rather than the usual white, really “pop” the colors and don’t look dingy like the white trays do. A tip while working, have an empty tray to keep the pastels that are being used for the current work, so that it’s easy to find that color again when you want it.

Another “tip for you” from Jerry for cleaning your pastels; place them in a container of cornmeal and gently shake the container. This will “sand” the outer surface of the pastels removing the “gunk”. Then sieve them out with your fingers.

When Jerry was working over his board and ran into an area that was challenging him, he told the audience: “If you make a mistake you learn something, if you don’t make a mistake you learn something else, so either way you learn something!” The audience appreciated that comment since everyone can relate to making mistakes while making art! It’s especially comforting to know that it happens to professionals too.

It was interesting to see the landscape appearing under Jerry’s pastel work, and to see it finished by the end of the demo. Thank you Jerry! 

********************

Originally published July 7, 2008

http://danielsmithart.blogspot.com/2008/07/seattle-daniel-smith-stores-free.html

This weekends FREE demos at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store are with Jerry Baldwin for some basics for creating landscapes in pastel, and Jim Stoccardo with acrylic painting and drawing on Ampersand Claybord. So please feel free to stop by and get some tips to add to your creative knowledge!

Saturday, July 5th at 11 am & 1:45 pm

Last weekend was the Spring Pastel Event at the DANIEL SMITH Stores in both Seattle and Bellevue. Out of the several Events and FREE demos scheduled, I was able to attend the FREE Pastel demo on Saturday, with Mary Shea, at the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store.

Mary Shea works primarily in pastel and some printmaking (monotypes) and for the pastel demo, Mary shared with us some of her techniques and her enthusiasm for making and experimenting with different art processes. Playfulness is an important part of Mary’s art, and it shows in her enthusiasm for her art materials and willingness to experiment….”it’s always worth it to try!”

For the demonstration, Mary used Sennelier Pastels and we each got some free Sennelier Pastel samples!

Because “I get a little frustrated sometimes on white paper”, Mary told us that she likes to work on Cason Mi-Tientes pastel paper [ "working on a black background really makes the colors sing" ] and do watercolor blocking on paper and monotypes, then drawing on top with pastel. Other papers that Mary likes to work with in pastel are printmaking paper (ones that have good “tooth” for the pastel to grab on to) and heavy handmade papers .

It was a fun hour to hear Mary Shea share her passion and enthusiasm for drawing and painting with pastels, thank you Mary! 

********************

Originally published April 29, 2008

http://danielsmithart.blogspot.com/2008/04/mary-shea-and-daniel-smith-spring.html

One of last February’s weekend Free demos at the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store was with Anne Olwin .  Anne’s demo was on techniques for working on Wallis Sanded Professional Grade Pastel Paper using DANIEL SMITH Watercolors and Sennelier Soft Pastels.

Anne’s ongoing chat about what she was doing began moving towards the idea of Having Fun With Painting! To not be afraid of playing around just to see what kind of results might happen. She said that if she liked the results, then that was something to remember to use another time, if she did not like it, well then Anne would remember that too.

The essence is that making art should fun, to not be afraid to play around, indulge in our natural child-like curiosity and experiment. We should also try not to treat our art supplies as so precious that we “freeze up” and stifle the creative flow or process, and to remember, that we can always start over on another piece of paper. Anne said that sometimes adults need “permission” to play with our art materials…and she gave her permission to the class with a laugh!

Everyone in the audience was really warmed up now about the idea of playing with the art materials, and ready to follow Anne’s play with the pastels on the Wallis paper.

Thanks to Anne Olwin for sharing with us some fun and exciting ideas with the watercolors and pastels on Wallis paper!

Anne Olwin will also have a Workshop, Sunday, April 6th, 2008

“Get a jump on the spring flowers, learning how to capture their freshness and beauty.