October Meeting - Journaling With Jane Penfield

               Jane Penfield explains color studies                 

It was an exciting October meeting at Arts Of Tolland this month. We were treated to a very informative discussion on how art journaling can be used to create finished paintings. Jane Penfield showed us some of her techniques on how to use journals, and she then proceeded to do a finished pastel at our monthly meeting. But what about the meeting?

There were about 20 members of TCAA that attended this month. We had a brief rundown of the minutes from last month, as well as sign ups for our upcoming open show. The deadline for entries is Oct. 24. Follow the link for the prospectus. This is an open show for anyone to participate, even if you are not a member. The work submitted every year is always stunning, and I am sure this year will be no different. There will be cash prizes given to first, second and third, and a special prize this year offered by Doug Gillette.

The special contest is for drawing and sketching. Doug's specialty is silverpoint, but one does not have to just do silverpoint to enter the contest. It can be charcoal, pencils, pen and ink, but not traditional mediums such as pastel or watercolor. We hope to see some fabulous entries this year for this special sketching award.

Artist Of The Month    

It was a very light participation this month. Three TCAA members brought paintings to be chosen for our Artist Of The Month locations. There are four currently. Jane Penfield decided the first, second and third place of our participants.

1st  - Emily Beckwith - Her art will hang this month at Monet's Table in Tolland, CT.
2nd - Lynn Lacoss     - Lynn will hang her painting at Tolland Library
3rd - Helen Dewey     - Helens choice is Stafford Library.

Congrats to all our winners.

There is no meeting planned for Nov. or Dec., so the paintings will hang at these locations for the winter. Each winner can switch out other pieces throughout the display, until we have our next meeting.

TCAA Open Show  

2017 TCAA Open Show

Our open show will run at the South Windsor Library through November. Drop offs will be Oct. 31. Our reception and awards ceremony will be at the library on Sunday, Nov. 4 from 2 to 4 p.m. Please see our prospectus for all the details. Even if you do not enter in our open show, come on by and support those who have entered. There will be plenty of food and conversation. It is a great time for fellowship for the TCAA, as well as a chance to meet those entrants who are not part of our member rolls.

We broke for some goodies, and there are always plenty. Just look at this table of tasty stuff. Thanks to all the members who shared their baking and cooking skills. It was all really good.

Journaling With Jane Penfield  

We were pleased to welcome Jane Penfield, a sublime pastel artist from Coventry. Jane has won numerous awards for her work and has local, national and international recognition. Her works have often been on display in our own TCAA shows, and she recently had a show at Arts Of Tolland.

Jane has been sketching and journaling her inspirations for many years, and introduced us to some of those journals. Jane prefers a recycled book because it offers mid value paper.

                                                                           

She has a portable folder she carries with her when she heads out to a local spot for some plein air work. It is small and only carries the essentials (sketch book, color wheel, pen, colored pencils.) As she is drawn to a subject, some of her first steps is to write down why she was attracted to that scene, which later may be filled in with poetry or quotes. She will also bring a camera, to record some of the colors and light at the moment.

She first does a thumbnail value sketch in monochrome,

usually within 15 minutes. The sketches are small and she is able to work out the bugs. Should it be landscape or portrait? Would it do better as a square? What are the most important aspects of the scene, and does it work? She knows quickly if it will not work, and continues sketching other aspects until she finally gets to the heart of what she is trying to say.

Her next step is to do a color study. This can be done with various tools. You can use watercolors if that is your preferred medium, or colored pencils, or in Jane's case she often uses pastels. You don't need your entire color set, but 4 or 5 basic colors should get you a good start. Of course, the basic colors of red, yellow, blue, brown, and white should be enough to get quite a variety of shades.




Once the preliminary sketches are done, Jane will bring out her field easel if she wishes to finish the painting on the spot. As a demonstration, Jane chose one of her sketches to do a finished piece at our meeting. Her chosen medium was pastels.

Jane uses UArt premounted pastel board. It allows her to do a wet underpainting with denatured alcohol. She began by explaining her reasons for choosing a vertical (portrait) configuration. The waterfall she chose was not dramatic, but the vertical position made it seem so. Also, the still fog at the top of the falls moved to an action as the water fell, to be resolved at the bottom in a brook. Stillness, crash, flowing brook. As an artist, she saw this as coming full circle.

Her first strokes were applied with charcoal, which works well with pastels.

She then proceeded to lightly block in her darks with a dark blue hard pastel. Some of the hardest are NuPastel, which allow you to put a thin coat of color, as well as one that adheres well to the board. The hard pastel also gives you good values between shadows and highlights. Jane recommends an 80/20 relationship of dark to light or cool to warm. In this compostion she place the horizon  25% down from the edge of the board. The top of the waterfall became her horizon line.

Using a brush, she began to spread the pastel with the denatured alcohol. It dries fast so is a good
choice for this underpainting step. In addition, she uses it to clean the brushes. The chalk will sink to the bottom, leaving the alcohol clean on top. She continues to use the same batch of alcohol for several paintings, and then she simply lets it evaporate so there is no dumping into sewers or down your pipes.

After filling in her darks, Jane wanted to demonstrate how to spread the pastel deeper into the paper to cover any areas coming through from the paper. She uses pipe insulation to blend so she can cover the white that you don't want. It gets it smoother and darker as it grinds the pastel into the board 

She used a yellow gold for the fog above the waterfall, and other colors to vary the lights and darks of the scene. For her upper layers, she used softer pastels such as Terry Ludwig. You can refer to one source at Dakota Art Supplies.

Her last color to use was white. This added highlights, as well as adding some lighter areas. She uses a very soft pastel for this step. Her choice is Schminke. These strokes are not blended at all. Over blending takes away the luminous nature of pastel.

Some words about the pastels. If you have more binder than pigment, you have a very hard pastel. This is best for underpainting. Some that have a lot of binder would be NuPastel and Rembrandt.

A mid grade has equal binder to pigment. The Terry Ludwigs fall into this category.

The softest pastels would be ones with more pigment than binder, such as Sennelier and Schminke. All the various hards and softs have a place in your pastel painting.

The TCAA wants to give a hearty thanks to Jane for her informative and clear demonstration. We appreciate all her work for this demonstration and look forward to more of her work. You can take classes with Jane by following her page at Jane Penfield Fine Art.

Fall Plein Air    

Our last fall outing will be on Saturday, October 20. We will be heading to Gurleyville Grist Mill on Stone Mill Rd. in Mansfield/Storrs. We will meet anywhere from 10 to 11, and stay until 1 or 1:30. The day may be rather cold. It might only get into the 50's. June will be there to greet anyone who may decide to come. Bring your paints, pastels, or sketchbooks. It is a delightful scenic along the Fenton River. Follow the link for directions and more info. Gurleyville Grist Mill

Hope some will brave the cool autumn air.