Plein Air Painting at Rope Mill Park

Today I painted with some friends at Rope Mill Park along the Little River in Cherokee County. Wini worked on watercolor and Marsha, Chris and I painted with pastels. It was a beautiful day, no clouds in the sky, and a great day to paint outdoors.

Pastel of Tai 8" x 10"

This is my great niece Tai.

Limited Palette Pastel

I continue to work on the limited palette pastel we began in class on Tuesday. I need to gray down the blue stripe in the background and the sand in the foreground. I may add some peach to warm it up a little in the sunny areas. Right now it is sitting on my mantle so I can decide what needs work.

My latest painting - in progress

This is my latest painting, still a work in progress. This was done in the style of Margaret Dyer and the photo I used was taken at the workshop this past weekend. You can see there is still work to be done, below the bench and some refining of values in the background, etc. I really enjoyed working on this painting and I will do more from the photographs that I took over the weekend.

LIMITED PALETTE PASTEL

In my pastel class yesterday, we painted with a limited palette. We had to choose a warm blue, cool blue, warm red, cool red, warm yellow, cool yellow, etc. We painted for about an hour and here is my start. I will continue to work on it and will post a finished shot. It was very hard to get used to using only 12 pastels. But, by using color temperature, we were able to start making objects come to life.

Close Up

A close up of one of Margaret's paintings that she did in the workshop. She uses such wonderful colors that just sing!

3rd day of the workshop

Third day of the Margaret Dyer Workshop

Pastel workshop with Margaret Dyer

Margaret doing a demonstration and a few samples from class.

Margaret Dyer Workshop Thursday - Saturday

Here is one of the paintings I did in the afternoon session of Margaret Dyer's pastel workshop. We are working with a nude model, most of us have worked with nude models before. There are some in the class who have not. It only takes a few minutes and all you look at are shapes and shadows instead of a nude body. I am learning a lot about using only value and not worrying about color. We have one more day.........if we don't get blown away by the the bad weather predicted for our area tonight.
Enjoy, and if you ever have the chance to take a workshop from Margaret.....run to sign up. She is a delight!

Margaret Dyer Workshop April 10-12

I am attending a Margaret Dyer workshop this week and learning her method of approaching pastels. We are using very bold colors and a "value" approach as opposed to a color approach. Here are a couple of pieces I did in class.

My new Pastel Box

Here is my new small Pastel Box that was made by Marsha Savage's dad. It is handmade, which makes it very special, with six dividers, heavy duty latches and hinges and wooden covers for both sides. I added foam on the bottom and glued headliner to the undersides of the two section covers. It works beautifully! It will be great to take to class, workshops and painting plein air. If you would like one contact Marsha at www.marshasavage.com.

Details of Pastel Box

Details of my new pastel box. Mr. Hamby handcarved the inset for the top cover latch. All I had to do was insert foam on the bottom and glue headliner fabric to the top of the cover boards.

Sewanee Overlook

Here is a quickie to play with color. This overlook is located near the campus of University of the South in Sewanee, TN.