Southeastern Pastel Society International Show

I promised to post a picture of the painting that was accepted into this prestigious show. I did show you the two that were not. Here is the pastel titled "Morning Mist" and it is on Ampersand Pastelbord, and the size is 18" x 24".

Best news is . . . drum roll please . . . I did win an "Exceptional Merit Award" for the piece. The judge and juror of awards was Duane Wakeham. He is a highly sought after juror and workshop instructor. But, the bad news is that our workshop associated with this show is to be his last workshop. He is signing off on teaching workshops in the future.

I also was able to take his last ever workshop. This was a special treat. He is a wonderful person and instructor. His premise for workshops has been "The thinking part of painting". It really is what I need at this time in my career. I know how to use the materials, but now I need to raise my art to the next level. Thinking and planning more before starting the painting will result in a better chance of creating what I have in my mind. Here are a few shots I took during the workshop of his demonstration and some of the students in the class. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Here is a photo from a projected image of his notebook where he was planning the structure of the painting. He brought the tree in, put it in the distance, middle of the page, left or right also. This was a shot of many he showed from a power point presentation of his planning process. This is not the plan for the demo that I will show a few shots of. The next photos are shots of his start, during the middle, and then the shot of the finish. Though he did tell us that it is not really a finished piece . . . it is a study for a larger painting and he might work on this "study" even more when he goes home.

Hope you can tell the room was quite crowded and we had to contain our supplies to 1/2 of the table. Everyone worked hard for the three days of the workshop. You can see my first day's attempt on the easel right there in front. The study for this one was on the easel behind what you can see here. It just peaks out at the top. Duane is helping another student just to the right of my painting. Karen Margulis and Nancy Belknap are the two students to the left of my painting . . . and they are previous students of mine. There were a total of 20 students in the workshop.

So much fun . . . and I got to transport Duane every day to and from the workshop venue and we had loads of time to talk about all aspects of the art world and painting. That was worth the price of the workshop! Duane Wakeham is a wonderful part of the art world in all ways -- a nice person, a thoughtful person, a wonderfully giving artist, and one of the most knowledgeable artists I know. So, until next post . . . keep on painting!