Your Eyes to the World of Soft Pastel Art
Demo
Featured Pastel Artist: Dan F. Gray
Nov 4th
Dan F. Gray Collage
Dan F. Gray is an artist from Canada and he has worked in soft pastel since 1975. The great majority of his portfolio are an plein air landscapes of British Columbia, Canada, together with motorcycles and cars blended in colorful nature. He has very recognizable style and at least for me there is some similarity between Dan’s landscapes and some of the James Whistler’s Venice pastel works. Dan had a couple of interesting projects, he was following 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver with his pastel paintings and I especially like his project “2010 Figures” in year 2010. Dan was a host for Canada’s Master Pastelists Exhibition earlier this year and there was already a post about it.
Dan is one of Canada’s leading practitioners of the pastel medium, winner of the Silver Pastel Plate and a Plaque of Distinction from the Canadian Pastel Society. His work has been presented in many newspapers and magazines including Pastel Journal in 2008. On his website you can find 3 very instructional demos.
Barn Owl by Roberta Roby Baer
Aug 2nd
Clark G. Mitchell Pastel Demo
Mar 14th
Clark G. Mitchell
I was fortunate enough to visit John Pence Gallery in San Francisco and see the pastel paintings by Clark G. Mitchell. Beside a few smaller landscapes there was one huge beautiful pastel painting, bigger than me and I’m sure the biggest pastel painting I’ve ever seen. Clark is a pastel artist with a B.A. in Fine Arts from Colorado College. He has been the feature article on several publications such as American Artist and The Pastel Journal. Clark is well known for his pastel landscapes: a teacher for over twenty years, he conducts both studio and plein air workshops. His studio is in California’s wine county Sonoma. If you will be a lucky participant at the IAPS convention in June you can still catch Clark’s 2 day workshop.
On the Artshow site you can find one of his old pastel demos.
Featured Pastel Artist: Betsy Kellum
Dec 7th
Betsy Kellum graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, and later studied art at the Art League in Old Town Alexandria, VA. She has studied with the well known artists Burton Silverman, Robert Liberace, Albert Handell, Doug Dawson, Tim Tyler and others. Betsy balances her own painting with her love of teaching art and has served as a juror and judge for art exhibits and shows.
Betsy has achieved signature membership in the Pastel Society of America, Pastel Society of the West Coast, Maryland Pastel Society the Southeastern Pastel Society. She has received numerous awards in the international and national juried shows throughout the U.S. and has been published in the Pastel Journal. She lives with her husband, Joe, 2 cats, 8 fish and 4 chickens in Powhatan, VA.
On her website Betsy offers 5 step demo with the underpainting in a thin oil and turpentine wash. She does underpainting in a deeper value of the colors or in the color compliment of the color to be applied on top.
Judy’s Pastel Tutorials
Nov 16th
Judy is a pastel artist who is behind a blog iwant2draw and a youtube channel with many pastel tutorials. There are many interesting subjects, and if you like Yoda from Star Wars, Iron Man, Manga characters or want to know how to enhance your pastel painting with a Photoshop, check the blog. Her video below is a pastel drawing of Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber.
Featured Pastel Artist: Tony Allain
Nov 4th
Tony Allain was born and raised in the Channel Islands (English Channel) where he thought art from 1987 until 1992. He lived some time in Cornwall, UK and after a recent trip to New Zealand he fell in love with the country and is now working and living there.
Tony is a painter of light and movement, and the subjects are ranging from marine and landscapes, town and street scenes through to still life. His painting has a brisk impressionist style, which is suited to the use of pastels. What I like the most about his art is the combination of gray and brilliant colors, together with the simplified scenes and interesting design.
Since January 1st 2010 Tony set a task to paint one small painting a day and post them on a blog. I was delighted after a recent discovery that he publishes paintings in big enough size where all strokes and details are clearly visible. Tony mostly works on the Canson Mi-Teintes paper and uses pastels on the softer side like Unison, Schminke and Sennelier. There is a nice 3 step demo on his blog from January 2010 (bottom of the page). He is a member of New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and the Pastel Association of New Zealand. His work is regularly featured in The Artist and Leisure Painter and the Pastel Journal.
Bill Cone Pastel Demo
Nov 2nd
According to the Internet Movie Database IMDb, Bill Cone was a production designer for a couple of Pixar’s blockbusters, but most of you will know Bill by his magical pastel landscapes.
Bill Cone studied fine art and commercial illustration in San Francisco, and the Art Center College of Design. After working as a commercial illustrator for many years, he began working for Pixar Animation Studios as a set designer on Toy Story, going on to subsequent projects as a Production Designer for A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, and Cars. While working on A Bug’s Life he began using pastels to do lighting studies, inspired by Ralph Eggleston’s pastel work on Toy Story. For the last few years Bill invites a group of fellow artists to hike into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, with a string of mules carrying their supplies.
In his latest blog post, Bill is revealing the steps he makes in creating those landscapes.
Featured Pastel Artist: Patrick Hedges
Jul 7th
Patrick Hedges collage
Patrick Hedges was born in Uganda, and lived for 14 years in and around East Africa. This early childhood instilled in him a love of wildlife and the outdoors. Since then he has traveled the world extensively, visiting over 50 countries. He now lives in South Australia.
Patrick Hedges
I’ve seen Patrick’s work on the WetCanvas first, where he provided beautiful portrait step-by-step instructions like the Old man, Chimp, Oriental lady and others. When you look at Patrick’s portfolio you see his great passion for a wildlife, but for me his human portraits are even more fascinating.
Patrick’s work is very detailed and best explained by his own words “I love detail and it’s often my wish to communicate the soul of the subject by paying special attention to the eyes and facial features. My goal with my art is to allow the viewer to feel something and for that to happen, I need to feel it first. It may be compassion, pain, love or some other emotion, but if I’ve created it, it made me feel something in the first place and I hope to convey this to the viewer”. Follow Patrick’s interesting travels and inspired art on Patrick Hedges blog.
Claude Texier Pastel Demo
Jun 23rd
Claude Texier
Claude Texier is a very known pastel artist from France where she has been regarded as a “Master Pastelist” since April 2000. She was born in Morocco, where she spent her first twenty years. Since 1994 she has been focused mainly on the art of pastel. In October of 2006, she has been elected as a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA) and is now recognized as a PSA Master Pastelist. Her work has won numerous awards and has been published in many art magazines.
Claude is generously offering 4 interesting paintings on her website with a step by step demonstration.
Jill Stefani Wagner
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