Friday, January 2, 2015


Day 2 - 30 Paintings in 30 Days

Forest Stream | Pastel | 5x7

Channeling Barbara Jaenicke, master pastelist,  today by trying to recreate a small vignette of one of her paintings. *
What I learned:
1) So glad I am taking a workshop from her at IAPS this June!  Maybe then I'll have an idea how she creates these amazing complex color filled wonders!
2) Used my finger cot (inside out bill counter) to smooth sky and wayback ground; had to stop myself from using it again! and again, and again. Bad habit!
3) She must have a full set of every color in the rainbow! I have lots of pastels but the muted orange/salmons she uses (perhaps)are missing from my thousand-at-my-fingertips!
4) I think she layers and layers and layers and adds strokes and strokes and strokes and at the end it all is together.  I envision her picking up a pastel and flitting here, there, everywhere, like a butterfly kissing each part of the scene for such a brief kiss.
4) When I tried to add her highlights, my mind screamed No! And that's another reason why her paintings are so vibrant and mine so so-so!  
Great lessons will be learned every day from this, I think.  Not only a learning experience but major fun to try to recreate works I admire.  Certainly teaching me my limitations!
*Barbara signed her painting very clearly (good on ya!) so I knew who this was from in my file called 'Other Artists'. Again, anyone who knows how to individually label photos on an iPad (like you can do on a pc) please advise.


2 comments:

  1. Marti, your paintings are beautiful as they are, and I am excited to see where these new techniques may take you. Very nice work!!

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