Your Eyes to the World of Soft Pastel Art
Archive for December, 2011
Featured Pastel Artist: Jill Stefani Wagner
Dec 28th
Jill Stefani Wagner
Jill Stefani Wagner works in two quite different mediums: watercolor and pastel. She finds watercolors to be very fresh and intuitive medium and she is ready to throw away many pieces. Pastel on the other side is more forgiving and she will changes color, form, and position until the wanted effect. She strives for realism with a painterly twist, but sometimes allows the rich hues and textures of a scene to dominate. Jill often works from resource photos from her travels but, when weather permits, she loves to paint from life or plein air.
Her pastel paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the MidWest, and her work hangs in various public and private collections throughout the United States. Jill’s pastel work has been given the Art Times Award from the prestigious Pastel Society of America Exhibition and she was recently honored with a National Award of Exceptional Merit from the Pastel Society of North Florida. Her work was given two honorable mentions in the Pastel Journal’s Pastel 100 Competition. She is a member of the National Watercolor Society, Pastel Society of America, Michigan Water Color Society, Great Lakes Pastel Society, Ann Arbor Women Artists and Ann Arbor Area Pastelists. Jill was born in Port Huron, Michigan. She received a B.F.A. from The University of Michigan School of Art and is senior partner of a successful graphic design firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
William A. Schneider, IAPS 19th Web Show Winner
Dec 26th
The International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) has organized the second web show and you can see it on the society website.
The show chair was Paula Ann Ford, and jurors of selection were Alain Picard, Christine Ivers, Phil Bates. The Judge of Awards was Denise LaRue Mahlke. To see the winning paintings click on the artist name.
1. William A. Schneider
2. Dan Michael
3. Kim Lordier
4. Marj Lightle
5. Jennifer Rowe
HM: Mary Aslin
HM: Daggi Wallace
HM: Margaret Dyer
HM: Jeannette Cuevas
Old Pastel Master: Edgar Chahine
Dec 13th
Edgar Chahine Collage
Edgar Chahine (1874-1947) was born in Vienna, Austria to Armenian parents and he grew up in Constantinople, Turkey. Chahine and his mother had moved to Venice to escape the persecution of Armenians in Turkey, and there Chahine started studying art in 1892.
At age 21 he decided to travel to Paris and pursue a career in fine arts. He studied painting under formal instruction at the Académie Julian. Chahine began to experiment with the possibilities of print making at the age of 25. Although he had already achieved some success with his paintings, he became fascinated with prints and soon worked exclusively in this medium. His prints were very much in demand by collectors and he won several medals and awards and received many commissions. The death of his fiancé plunged him into a deep depression, and he left Paris to travel through Italy. This voyage gave him the serenity and the inspiration to begin working with new enthusiasm actually etching the day’s drawings onto copper plates in his hotel room each night. He returned with new vigor and expanded his efforts to once again include pastels and oils in his work. Many of Chahine’s prints were lost in a fire in his atelier in 1926, and many more were destroyed in a flood in 1942. Some of the remaining pastel works can be found at the Musee Armenian de France in Paris.
Barbara Benedetti Newton
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