Workshop Wrap Up - Mainstreet Art Center, Lake Zurich, IL

I enjoyed spending several days last week with a great group of artists in the Chicago area. Mainstreet Art Center in Lake Zurich hosted my 3-day landscape workshop for pastel and oil. Below are my completed demos from the workshop.

Winter Evening Magic Hour, pastel, 12x12

Rising River, oil, 12x9

With the pastel demo, I discussed the importance of the thumbnail "map" for deliberate, planned placement of every element in the landscape. The oil demo was an example of blocking in the painting with just five shapes.

We also did a day of "minimal stroke" exercises, which is always a real eye-opener for students. I demonstrated quick examples in both pastel and oil. With either medium, this exercise causes artists to realize what they need to think about before laying down each stroke. The oil painters especially realized how much paint they actually need to mix up and have on their brush before putting the brush to their canvas.

During the workshop, one resourceful student, Chuck Sisson, came up with a brilliant solution to handling some busy subject matter in his landscape. Thought I'd share. Below is Chuck's painting in progress and a detail of this painting beneath. 

Work in progress by Chuck Sisson.

Detail, resulting from a "carved" pastel stick.

Chuck had initially placed in these fern-like stems in a way that was rendering far too much detail and not accurately depicting the "thicks and thins" of the foliage. Many experienced artists usually try to simplify areas such as this by connecting shapes and pulling out just a few of the fine edges and details. However, Chuck, an experienced artist himself, came up with a different solution: He carved with a razor blade some indentations into the flat edge of a Terry Ludwig pastel to create a simplified pattern that he pressed onto the surface. I thought he made it work beautifully!!

My next workshop will be here in Georgia, at the Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, located a little more than an hour north of the Atlanta area. This one is also offered to both oil and pastel artists, and will be two intensive days studying how to simplify and interpret the landscape. With affordable hotels nearby and plenty of great restaurants right near the art center, it's a great opportunity for out-of-towners to travel here for a short-term workshop. It's April 28 & 29 (Mon/Tues), 10 - 6, $250. Visit www.quinlanartscenter.org for more information and to register.

Buildings in the Landscape

Sundown Light, oil, 8x10

The Evening Show, pastel, 8x10

The focus this month in my classes at my studio was buildings within the landscape. The challenge here for the landscape artist is to avoid over defining and over rendering structures. This causes structures to look too stiff among the softer, often curvier edges of the landscape. As a landscape artist, our goal is to have structures look like they blend into the landscape, and not appear cut out and pasted in.

I think there are two critical areas to address in order to do this successfully:

1) Edges - Yes, in reality the edges of a building are certainly going to be stiffer, sharper, straighter than leaves on a tree or the foliage of a bush. But the job of the landscape artist is to be the editor of our paintings and decide WHICH edges get to communicate the idea of "straight" and "crisp." If we render every edge equally, that will lead to the cut out and pasted, stiff look. Finding areas to completely lose edges (often where two areas of similar values meet) creates a more fluid look, and also allows shapes to visually connect, which strengthens the composition. Beginning the painting by connecting large abstract shapes (i.e., connecting landscape elements with the structures) helps to establish this in the early stages.

2) Color Harmony - Even if your structure, in reality, shares no common color with elements in your landscape that it's within, it's the artist's job to find opportunities to harmonize color use. One way is with light and shadow found in both the structure and the landscape. Also, keeping to a limited palette and repeating colors where they'll "make sense"--thinking more in terms of "warms" and "cools" rather than exact local color--can allow you to find more areas for common, harmonized color.

"Sundown Light" and "The Evening Show" are my demos from my March oil and pastel classes. Below are some progression shots from each...

Workshop Wrap Up - Akron Society of Artists, Akron, OH

One of the best parts of teaching workshops is having the opportunity to meet friendly, enthusiastic artists who are eager to learn. My experience last week during my pastel workshop for the Akron Society of Artists in Akron, OH was no exception! With a mix of new and experienced artists in this group, we all enjoyed sharing knowledge and talking art for three days straight!

Day 1 demo...

Hilltop View, 11x14

Day 2 demo...

Warm Memory, 11x14

underpainting for Warm Memory

Day 3 demo...

minimal stroke exercise...completed in 100 strokes

Snow on the Marsh Impression, 6x8 (after a few touch up strokes)

During my visit for this workshop, I was honored to have the Akron Society of Artists (ASA) ask me to lead their critique group one evening. This is a group comprised of many accomplished artists with some "wow" paintings, which made this a challenging yet extremely enjoyable experience. Thank you, ASA!

The Greens of Winter

Yes, I realize I've been painting lots of snow lately. I promise I'll stop soon. The winter weather in most areas of this country has outstayed its welcome already, but it's so darn fun to paint! In my classes this month at my studio, I wanted to spend one more session playing in the snow, this time focusing on greenery within a snow scene in order to study the warm and cool color temperatures in the greenery as compared to the snow.

It's quite the balancing act to observe these color temperatures in such different hues in the landscape. But with painting, everything is relative, and it's a matter of comparing how one color appears next to another. The same color can appear cool in one location but warm in another.

Below are my oil and pastel demos from this topic...

Three's a Crowd, pastel, 8x10

Middle of the Road, oil, 8x10

In both paintings, the darks of the greenery made for a strong value contrast against the snow. Careful observation reveals that even the shadow areas of the snow are a great deal lighter than the greenery. Even the highlighted areas of the greens are still darker than the shadow areas of the snow. Warm and cool color shifts in both the snow and the greenery are key to conveying sunlight and shadow areas, with the value shifts in those areas much more subtle.

Below are a few progression shots of each...

Workshop Wrap Up - Red Cockerill Gallery

This past Saturday I enjoyed spending the day with a great group of artists at the Red Cockerill Gallery in Austell, GA, a town just west of Atlanta. This charming little gallery is run by Ann Cockerill, who also teaches classes regularly at her gallery, and occasionally hosts workshops by guest artists. I was fortunate to be invited back to teach a workshop, after conducting a demonstration there several months ago.

Several in this group were experienced artists, but new to pastel. Ann was kind enough to work with me to put together a starter supply kit for students to purchase from the gallery. This was a great, affordable way for many in the group to give pastels a try.

Since many of the pastels in the starter kit were fairly bright, and I wanted to try and use as many as I could from the same pastels as the class, my resulting demo was a bit on the bright side! I did sneak in several of my neutrals, and explained the importance of balancing color temperature, even when you desire intense color in your finished painting. "Winter Reds" was my demo from this workshop.

Winter Reds, pastel, 14x11

thumbnail value study for Winter Reds

Workshop Wrap Up - Terry Ludwig Pastels, Littleton, CO

Earlier this week I returned from a two-week visit to Colorado, which included a family ski trip in Winter Park, a few days of plein air painting with artist friends in Longmont, Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder, and teaching a three-day pastel workshop at Terry Ludwig Pastels in Littleton. I came home exhausted...yet energized! I just now had a chance to post some tidbits from the pastel workshop...

Following below are my three demos from the workshop...

Bright Spot, pastel, 11x14

Farm Road Curve, pastel, 11x14

Snow Covered Marsh, (100-stokes) pastel, 6x8

With "Bright Spot" I described my basic method for composing my painting and how I construct my thumbnails.

On day two, we did the "five-shape landscape" exercise, and I began "Farm Road Curve" by blocking in only five shapes to start the painting.

We practiced minimal stroke exercises on the last day. After some warm-up 20-stroke exercises, we painted small landscapes using no more than 100 strokes. "Snow Covered Marsh" was my minimal stroke demo.

There were several accomplished pastel artists among the students in this workshop. As they were blocking in their five-shape-landscape paintings, there were several very strong examples of well designed foundations, so I snapped a few shots. Most of them adhered to the 5 shapes. Some of them went with the "5ish shape" method, which still works. ;-) I hope they don't mind me posting them here.

Student examples of 5-shape block-ins:

Next month I'm off to Akron, Ohio (Feb. 26, 27 & 28) and then in March in the Chicago area (Mar. 14, 15 & 16), both pastel workshops. Last I checked, there were a few spots still left in Akron, but I believe the Chicago workshop is full.

Sun & Snow

Three O'clock Shadow Dance, pastel, 8x10

December Light, oil, 10x8

In my previous set of classes at my studio last month, we focused on snow in cloudy, low light conditions. I did two separate blog posts on this: one for pastel and one for oil. I've combined them here this time. In this month's classes, we turned up the sunlight and studied the effects of strong light on snow.

I happen to like the color and lighting effects of both cloudy and sunny conditions on snow. The subtle greys that subdued light conditions create are gorgeous in the winter landscape. But with strong, direct sunlight, you get those luscious deep blues and purples in the snow shadows. With this stronger light, you also have higher contrast in the snow and more vibrancy in the shadows. And the use of cools and warms placed together in the sunlit areas creates that reflective, sunlit quality of the snow.

In my pastel demo, "Three O'clock Show Dance," I used a very warm underpainting which I allowed to show through quite a bit in order to capture the warm/cool color vibration.

In my oil demo, "December Light," I placed strokes of warms and cools next to each other in the snow and on the sunlit birch trees.

Below are a couple of progression shots of each...

Upcoming Workshops in Colorado, Ohio and Georgia

I'm excited to be starting off 2014 with several pastel workshops lined up...

Terry Ludwig Pastels, Littleton, CO - Jan. 24, 25 & 26, $325
www.terryludwig.com
2 more spots left

Red Cockerill Gallery, Austel, GA - Sat., Feb. 8, $120
www.redcockerillgallery.com, 770-944-3160
This is an ideal workshop for beginners! The gallery is offering the option to purchase a small, affordable "start-up" supply kit for this workshop...contact the gallery for details.

Akron Society of Artists, Akron, OH - Feb. 26, 27 & 28, $395
www.akronsocietyofartists.com

More details are available on my website at www.barbarajaenicke.com, or email me with any questions at barbarajaenicke@msn.com.