Demo in Bellingham, Washington

Here are two photos from a demonstration I gave to a small group of artists in Sudden Valley near Bellingham, Washington. My friend, Denise Champion, set this up and items were put in the local papers and on websites to get more painters to the demo. There were about 15 artists present -- and two came from the Northwest Pastel Society to watch. It was a good group and they asked intelligent questions!

This was supposed to be a plein air demo, but we knew the clouds were coming in the night before and when we got up the next morning it was threatening rain and was windy. We would have been beside the first tee on a golf course, with no protection from the winds. We made a decision to have the demo inside the restaurant located above the Golf Pro Shop. There were great large windows looking out onto the golf course and almost the scene I was painting. I had taken photographs a few days earlier of several views of the scene. So I chose one that I thought would be a good demo to demonstrate some points about painting, as well as how to change it to look more like I painted it plein air.

You can see that I was painting from a Mac computer screen, which was much better than working from a small 4x6 photograph. And . . . being able to look outside was wonderful. I discussed the differences between what you see in real life and what you see in a photograph. I think it made a very good impression on the group to be able to look out the window and understand what I was talking about.

In the photo of the start of the painting, you can see the image on the screen, and the painting with a warm orange wash on an Ampersand Pastelbord. Also it shows I have layed in just a bit of dark for the pattern of darks in the painting. I have done this quite lightly even though it is a somewhat darker pastel -- and it is a harder pastel so that not so much pastel comes off the stick to use up the tooth of the pastelbord (spelling is according to Ampersand).

I'll post more progress shots in a few days. . . . and more discussion about what I was doing.