Critique and Saying Goodbye to New Friends

It was a fantastic week.  My thanks to the coordinators and hostesses from Sierra Pastel Society and Thaelia for her gorgeous cabin "base camp".  Richard's presentations, talks, demos, and 1 on 1 with all of us at our easels was amazing.  Then he topped it off with individual critiques of each of our week-long pieces that lasted from 1:00 till 6pm! 

One Very Thoughtful Artist went to each person's notebook and wrote his comments there for them while they were up there with Richard with their work.

The first comment I will focus on right now is :  "Respond to the underpainting - ask yourself 'what is the least amount of pastel marks do I need to make?'" 

Another key comment was: "Do shapes, set values, then a few small spots - a few powerful marks - will be more poetic - when little notes are allowed to stand out, it sings."

Thank you Richard for helping me grow!

Friday Morning at McKinley's Workshop

On our last paint-out, we went back to the river.  One of his suggestions throughout the workshop was to do the same scene over and over on different days, different light conditions.  Through familiarity of a scene you get more intuitive and poetic (The Big Goal).   (Oops, I kinda forgot that! - and I painted a new scene - again a small and intimate scene with high contrasts). 

It was OK, but again I was reminded to develop bigger shapes in the beginning (sometimes I get obsessed with things like dead twigs...)

To fix at home:  the greenish dark border over the top of the big rock!  Like, take canned air to it!  And, need to do more highlights on the foreground left willow.

Thursday AM - an interesting start of the day

On this day we headed up to the Carson Pass (very high - 8,650 feet) to a lovely spot where juniper trees similar to the old Bristlecone Pines grow.  As we were hiking and looking for spots to paint there was some activity in our parking lot.  A helicopter was picking up canisters to take to the mountain tops for avalanche control.  With that much noise and dust blowing, we decided to move down to a lower parking lot with a view of Red Lake.

Hiking around at this elevation did slow down many of us.  I live at 5,000 feet and I was so tired hiking around for a place to paint, that I (and most of us) decided to paint right beside our cars.  My view of Red Lake was obscured by trees.  I also wasn't in the mood for painting a lake, so I "dried up the lake" and made it a meadow, and I eliminated the trees in front.  Here is my underpainting.  My tip for the day while painting it was to not get too fussy and loosen up in the watercolor underpainting. 

This painting was a struggle and I got myself into a dead-end and didn't know how to get myself out of it.  So it was interesting to see how Richard bailed my painting out a bit with his additions.  I have photos of the location and will try again at home with the suggestions I was given.  I might even put the lake back in!

Wed. Afternoon of Day 3 - McKinley Workshop

After Richard's 1:00 demo in a grassy meadow with a view of the mountains (picture of his demo below), We spread out to paint.  It might have been around 4:00.  I cut a 9x12 piece of white Kitty Wallis so I could finish quickly, and I picked a really simple scene that was up close and had strong contrasts.  I made the watercolor stronger this time since the morning one was weak.  That made a big difference for me.  I was delighted that I could do just a few pastel marks over the watercolor - and left most of the watercolor showing.  (Yay!)

Here is my underpainting:

Here is Richard's demo:  a complete painting - ready for framing!  Really informative demo - he is great at putting his techniques into words - and watching him work was totally inspiring!