Pastel Workshop

[Angela]

Hi All . . . I am taking a workshop on Sunday at an art center close to me (Perkins Center for the Arts). It's a pastel workshop given by Adelaide DeAntonio. I'm looking forward to it. I bought a really cheap set and they sucked pretty bad, so I'm hoping to go to Pearl's tomorrow in Philadelphia and buy what I need for the class. Wish me luck - I'll let everyone know how it goes!

[Brenda]

Have fun, Angela!!!

[ex-limey]

Hi Angela! :) If you are going to buy pastel pencils I can highly recommend Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils. They are really soft, not gritty or hard. Have Fun at the Work shop!! :bye1:

[Debee]

Angela, workshops are so much fun. have a great time. Let us see what you did too!
Pearls, I've heard of that place. Tell me where it is. One of my painting buddies is from Pittsburg and goes home quite often. She would absolutely love a new place to shop. :D

[Debee]

:bangin: :bangin: :bangin: :blushing:
Sorry wrong city! Cancel that last request :rolleyes:

[Angela]

That's okay Debee. I actually went to Pearl's today - it's a rainy, wet and miserable day! But, Pearl's is three floors of art and craft supplies and I had a specific list of what to get. . . I had to get Nupastels, and I got Rembrandt pastels as well, plus two sheets of Canson Paper 19X25. I will definitely post what I do! Can't wait to go tomorrow.

[Angela]

Well, here it is . . . the piece that I did today - my first pastel. I am actually kind of happy with it - it isn't done in a style that I normally work in, but I kinda like it!

[lucky]

Your first pastel!? Wow, well I think you did a terrific job Angela! I really like the impressionistic style. You did such a beautiful job on the white pot, love the colors and the modeling. The fruit are great also, I especially like the one in the center, with so little strokes. And the lemon, wow, very impressive!

I'm so jealous about the workshop! :D So how was it? What neat stuff did you learn? (that you can pass along ;) )

[Debee]

Wonderful!!! This is inspiring! My first pastel was a disaster. But I want to try it again since pastel pencil is available.
This is fresh. Did you work from a still life set up or photo?

Wow! Three floors of art supplies, unbelievable. That just screams FIELD TRIP to me :D

[zzzzak]

Yes, that's a nice piece of work, Angela. There's a good sense of vitality and sponteneity. I must admit that I find pastels tricky to work with. I tend to finish up with a muddy mess. This is great, though. Congratulations.

[Amazingreys]

Agreed, this is great!
I've never attended a workshop before, sounds like a great time.
Yes, lets hear all about what you learned! :)

[Angela]

Thanks Lucky, zzzak, Debee, and Amazing!! The pastel workshop went by so fast. We started at 10:00 with an hour long demonstration by the teacher. She started out using soft vine charcoal to get in the basic shapes, very abstract, then shading using the charcoal. (I thought, no way is this going to look like much). Then she used white to do the highlights, so by this point it was just a bunch of black and some white on grey Canson. Then, she started adding in color, one color at a time, wherever you saw it in the still-life. Then she would re-draw with the black, outlining what she saw, then adding more color. It's kind of hard to explain, but I followed her steps exactly and ended up with that pic above. She was such a nice woman and so cute. There were times she would put the pastel down gently, then other times she said to "attack" the paper with the pastel. I would definitely take another workshop from her! I enjoyed myself!!

[lucky]

Hey, thanks for passing all that along Angela. Wow, I would always be so nervous that it would turn out looking muddy with the charcoal drawing underneath, but it doesn't at all! Hmmmm, maybe I'll give it a shot some time. Thanks so much for the explaination!