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Friday, August 22, 2014

Lake Tahoe Workshop day 2

'Morning View'. 5x7. Plein air pastel.

Sunshine, mountains, pastels and lots of laughter. What more could one ask for? I woke up early to the barking of Megan, the resident chocolate lab. It wasn't her 'bear bark' though which was a good thing. Only last week a bear managed to crawl through the kitchen window before being chased off by the dogs. Such is life at the edge of the mountains.I'm kind of glad I missed it! That's a little too close for comfort!

After breakfast we set up our easels on the back patio. I did a quick demo of the morning view and shared some thoughts on my approach to plein air. The focus of this workshop isn't plein air rather it is an exploration of pastels. (Mostly beginners) This morning we would do watercolor underpainting and the chosen subject was sunflowers.

We had some sunflowers to paint from life and after my demo everyone got to work. It was a perfect morning with great paintings by everyone. We spent the afternoon sightseeing and taking photos of this gorgeous area before returning for an early evening demo.

The talk has begun about buying pastels and I can feel everyone's excitement to explore more....tomorrow we will do just that!

My demo of a sunflower with a watercolor underpainting on watercolor paper with clear gesso

I love the ingenious way of displaying the sunflower

Hard at work!

 

1 comment:

chris a said...

What a wonderful trip - such great scenery and a great group of artists - wish I could go exploring with you!