Student Work and Inspiration

I am teaching a colored pencil drawing class at the Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI and I thought I would share our lesson on Friday.  My students are beginners to working in colored pencil although most have taken other art classes and open to trying new techniques with colored pencil. For this class, I had them work on 5x7" Ampersand Gray Pastelbords using colored pencil and odorless Gamsol solvent. They each have a set of 48 Prismacolor pencils and we work within the colors contained in the box. I chose cherries as a subject for them and let each person choose the background. They each began by deciding on their composition and then sketching it out. Next adding a layer of colored pencil and working in the solvent with a brush, afterward adding more layers of colored pencil to the wet solvent and later more when the area had dried.

On Saturday I went up to Boston with a friend to visit the Richard Schmid, Nancy Guzik and Kathey Anderson oil exhibit at the St Botolph Club and the Boston Fine Arts Expo. Besides being back in my old Copley Square neighborhood from my college days, I really enjoyed and was inspired by all the wonderful art at both events and the American Art Collector magazine I picked up on the way out. Although, there are mostly oils at the Fine Arts Expo, there were some pastels and watercolors but a very few drawings and no colored pencil. Much of the work was from the 19th and early 20th centuries, although some contemporary artists mixed in. Still inspiring but got me thinking how can professional colored pencil works become included?

American Art Collector - March Issue

I'm plugging along with more candy apple pieces so I won't post them until they are finished and framed because it's my usual process. So rather, I'm including the pages from the next issue of American Art Collector. Through the Bristol Art Gallery, I am included in the feature editorial of Florals and Botanicals on pages 100 and 104. Page 104 shows my colored pencil piece "Calla Lilies" which was inspired by a trip to Kew Gardens in London a few years ago. American Art Collector is a great magazine highlighting different artwork from all over the USA. I enjoy seeing subjects and mediums other artists choose and happy to see other colored pencil artists featured. Its nice to see colored pencil gaining recognition in galleries and art magazines.

I'm in Florida right now and entered three small colored pencil pieces that I worked on board and varnished into a community art exhibit here. I can't tell you how many favorable comments I received and how many people said, "that's colored pencil?!" I really enjoy introducing viewers to different processes and new ways of seeing art.

Oh happy snow day!

Our New England weather has been cold and snowy and I haven't been to the studio to work on Elaina and so I started a new colored pencil piece over the weekend at home. I have some photos of beautiful red and yellow tulips in a glass vase in which I took on a gray day and have been thinking about them for a while. My idea and inspiration is to portray the vase of tulips as vibrant and bright against a quiet blue/gray background of a rainy day. The surface in which I'm working on 18x24" Rtistx board. This photo (above) isn't great, I took it inside in natural light and the brightness of snow out the window is graying everything in the front, however the tulips are still fairly bright enough to get the idea of my start.

The galleries are asking for my colored pencil work not to be framed under glass. The lighting from above reflects on the glass and the piece is difficult to see. So I have to rethink my surfaces. I Chose Rtistx for this piece because it can be varnished but also has less texture than the other boards I work on. I need a softer surface for the delicate petals and leaves, yet still a board that can withstand being varnished afterward.

After reading Paula Pertile's blog entry on colored pencil swatches for the various brands, I decided to give my Lyra Rembrandt pencils a workout on this piece. The Prismas and Coloursofts are softer and crumble a bit and flake off as I layer them. I'm still using them along with the Rembrandts which aren't as crumbly and can be applied a little more evenly. Paula is correct, they do go on like 'buttah'! The Rtistx is also wonderful for layering lights on top of darks and will take many layers of color. The white surface makes the color even more vibrant. I don't like to burnish much on my work, I like the texture of the surface and characteristics of the pencil to show through. If I do decide I need to cover some of the texture and solidify areas of the colored pencil, I will add solvent.
Here is the ad with my artwork that will appear in February issue of American Art Collector magazine. I also found out today that this piece "Red Reflections" was juried into CPSA's Explore This 7 Online Exhibition that will be on the website starting February 1. This is my 4th acceptance into the Explore This exhibitions. I'm also very excited because one of my c.p. students, Cheryl Borbone, had her piece "Cherry Martini" accepted into Explore This 7. While she worked on this piece independently, I am happy to have helped her develop her colored pencil skills over the last few years she has taken classes with me.