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Friday, April 10, 2015

Lighten the Load on your Next Workshop or Trip

'Time for Bluebonnets'             8x10          pastel           ©Karen Margulis
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It is almost here. I will be heading for Dripping Springs Texas next week to teach a workshop. I will be hosted by Marsha Young at her wonderful Butterfly Gallery in Dripping Springs. We will have one studio day and two plein air days. Marsha has found some wonderful spots to paint including a B&B and a winery. My fingers are crossed that the weather will cooperate and that we will see some bluebonnets.

Packing for a workshop is part of the fun. I love to pack. To me it is an art form of it's own. I love bags and suitcases and have more than any one person could ever need.  My family calls me a bag lady and I suppose that is true. But there is one thing that I have learned to embrace.....

I don't need to bring every bag on a trip! I need to pack light.

The block in for today's painting

I can enjoy the experience so much more if I don't have to lug around and keep up with multiple bags of stuff. I have downsized the painting supplies I bring and downsized the clothes and other misc. stuff I bring. It feels great!

I'll discuss packing art supplies in another post. Today I'd like to share some of the wonderful packing tips for clothes and other travel necessities that I have found online. I put them all together on a Pinterest board. Visit the board to check out the tips. It isn't too early to start planning to lighten the load on your next trip or workshop!  Click here to visit the Packing Tips board. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm new to pastel and was wondering how you keep the charcoal outline in the under-painting from showing through. Mine always shows ! I've tried workable fixative with bad results. I'm working with pentel oil pastels while I save up for Ludwicks. Any pointers ? Awesome blog !

Best,
B

Anna Lisa said...

The bluebonnet are very nice this year!! ENJOY! Was just in Dripping this morning and afternoon setting up for the AAHC Studio tour. It is gorgeous out there right now.

Karen said...

Thanks for the report Anna! I am excited to see them!

B, I don't always use charcoal but when I do I use it very lightly. You might want to try a pastel pencil. I don't work with oil pastels though so I don't have any advise for using them. The oil pastels are nt the same as the Ludwigs which are soft pastels. They are made differently so they work differently \!

robertsloan2art said...

Karen, you're past mistress of packing light and compact, also organized. You've done several articles on it, all of them useful. Looking forward to the next one! I think your micro-mini kit for the cruise was the lightest, but you've always gone light.

Past a certain point having a choice of bags, weights and palettes is pretty cool! For me it's helped enormously because weather determines my carrying capacity. I'll go way lighter on bad days and pack up on good days.

B - one of the biggest reasons you see charcoal lines is that oil pastels are often translucent. Some brands are more opaque than others. Tints may be more opaque than pure tones. Some brands all are translucent.

The more pigment rich artist grade oil pastels have more opacity, I think Holbein and Neopastel are about the best for it. But using pastel pencil in a color that harmonizes well like violet may be a better solution. Or just sketching with oil pastel in hues and values similar to your value map!

Soft pastels are more opaque and the softer the better. Getting the same results with a different medium takes a lot of tricks and sometimes can't be done.

With something like Karen's monochrome underpaintings, using the same color for the sketch as for the value underpainting can work really well. More or less the same, no need to match exact hue, just general hue.

Melle Ferre said...

Lovely painting!