The lady artist works as a gallery director at the art center along with being a working artist. Discovering her talents in high school, the hempfield township resident majored in art at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and has been active at the art club since 1970. The art center plays host to her work regularly. She says that her work area spans oils, pastels as well as silk screen printing.
A pastel painting of landscapes from a photograph was demonstrated by her when another art club invited her. But she recommends otherwise stating that beginners should not work exclusively from photographs. Anyone starting up should go outside to see the nuances of light and shadow.
If the painter paints outside, he can absorb the details better, sketch the actual scene, take a photograph and refer to it later on. She normally does it like this. She also creates composite landscapes from several photographs. When a single photograph cannot cover all the elements demanded by a customer, then this system becomes very useful.
It is easy to adjust a painting in a way that it does not include aspects not desirable from a photograph that is being used as a reference. You must decide what you want as the most important part of your painting. Normally she wouldn't do it but using a photograph helps her decide how the work would look when it is completed.
As she explains her technique she creates a pastel portrait from an enlarged photocopy of a painting that was clicked during the fall at Slippery Rock for her model. She does not draw edge to edge so that the frame does not cover any part of the painting. Since the wrong side of the pastel sheet is less textured, she draws on that, since it helps in layering colour.
The logs and branches that rise from the water are drawn using reds and blues. By adding bits of red not visible on the photograph she is able to put emphasis on certain parts of her painting. Pastels are the closest an artist can get to using pure pigment and she exploits this characteristic with care.
She recommends that it is good to stop and contemplate over the color values. You don't want to use too much light too soon. Lighter values can be layered over the darker ones in pastel painting and one does not need to worry about conserving white areas like in watercolors. It is important to feel your way around the pastels.
The color ranges should be used with a good degree of caution. It is important to mention how pastels allow enough colors to get the right one without having to mix many shades. If the artist is not satisfied with the result, he can wipe the color off and start over again when using pastels. It is an easy going medium.
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