Astrid Volquardsen - Artistic Direction

Astrid Volquardsen:

Dear Casey, thanks for the opportunity to give me some of your space to tell about myself and my work. I just thought the other day, how great it is, to read all these different blogs. To have a look at what's going on somewhere else. For me, it was a great relief to find out that there is a whole bunch of people who favor the same kind of art. It makes it much easier to keep up your self-esteem, to be authentic in your work and persevere in your darkest hour. I think you know what I mean.

Astrid's interview continues...

Materials

After experimenting a lot with different kind of pastel grounds I now stick with Sennelier pastel card. Its sanded surface suits my needs very well. I do a lot of blending with my hands especially on the first layers, so I need soft pastels. There again it is Sennelier Pastels à l'écu . I love their luminosity and wide impressionistic orientated color range. Some artists criticize that they easily crumble. Well, in the end all pastels crumble and I just simply don't care, if they supply me with the colors I need. In addition I use Unisons and Girault for details.

Abends am Amrumtief
10 x 30.4 inch
Soft Pastel
© Astrid Volquardsen

While at the shore, I take pictures, do sketches and if there is time and the weather is O.K., I paint plein air. At the shore, this isn't always easy. Often I have to secure my easel or otherwise it will be blown away by the strong wind.

Most of my work is painted in my studio. Usually I work with a lot of layers and constant blending, adding a new layer and taking away parts of that layer. This method I use especially for the waves as you can see in the picture.

Detail of the wave of 'Abends am Amrumtief'

© Astrid Volquardsen

Artistic Direction

To capture light is the most important aspect for me. It's not so much about color, but always about light. In the last years my focus was on maritime landscapes and I love to paint in a small format.

Vor dem Regen
5.2 x 8.4 inch
Soft Pastel
© Astrid Volquardsen

To capture the wide open spaces at the seashore in miniature is something I really love to do, even though I do have larger formats as well. Right now I'm preparing a new exhibition in Mai on the Frisian Islands (Föhr) and have reached the point where all is in doubt. I love my seascapes, but I have the need and feeling to move on to something completely different. So in the future, I think, I will turn to more figurative work. Some sketches are already on my studio wall.

If you would like to have a look at my pastels on my website, on my homepage www.pastellbilder.de you have to click on “Werk-Reihen”, and then just click on the image.

Or you go to my blog, Pastell Blog, if you scroll down or look at the older posts you might get a further impression of my work.

Astrid Volquardsen

Astrid Volquardsen at the shore of Föhr

Pastellbilder-Pastell Blog

Astrid Volquardsen:

I live in the north of Germany in a small village called Bardowick, which is near Hamburg, where I grew up. Hamburg itself is a large city with a maritime touch and I recall many hours spent with my dad down at the harbor or taking trips to the North Sea with my family. So, it was a logical thing to focus on maritime landscapes, because that's where my heart lies and my soul is at peace.

State of pastel art in Germany

I started with pastels 20 years ago when I participated in a life drawing class. I just loved the way I could quickly fill in color. Immediately I fell in love with pastels and no other medium has had the same effect on me ever since.

For reasons I really don't know, pastels don't have a very high reputation in Germany. It's has not been considered to be "high art" by art colleges or galleries, but I didn't care and stuck to it anyway.

I think this has something to do with authenticity-about which you wrote in your blog, Casey. (You said) to listen to your inner-self and follow that path.

Back then I just knew this material was the perfect fit for myself, my art and what I would like to do and tried to not to listen too much to what my college teachers said about it. (College teachers still do not speak very nicely about pastels.)

To make it worse, realism might lead to a very lonely road, even though its getting better.

Pastels are still not widely known or as popular as watercolor or acrylic and there are only a few pastel artist in Germany. Gallery owners frequently told me: "I like your what?.... Pastels?...., but do you paint in oils?" After I heard that a couple of times, I started to educate the buying public and gallery owners, which actually is quite a lot of fun and a welcome change after lonely hours in my studio.

Two years ago I started to promote the pastels of Sennelier (I mostly paint with that brand). We have a widespread art supply store, which has branches all over Germany. There, I give speeches and do demonstrations of what is generally possible with pastels. I cover aspects like the different kind of pastel brands and grounds and how pastels can be applied. I show examples of American pastelists and people are really amazed at the possibilities. In addition, I point out to various websites and in the future I will highlight some blogs. Recently I started a blog and I have my own Website.

The funny thing about blogging is, that again, it's not that widely known and accepted in Germany as it is in America. I haven't hardly found any good blogs of German artist and they don't leave their comments as you guys do in America. Some artist have started to blog in German and English, but right now I don't know about that. I like to reach my German audience, so I try to figure out, how I can take away their shyness. But all these efforts have shown effects and I get emails from many people, who feel encouraged to use pastels. And I have found galleries who like my work and haven't asked me so far, if I paint in oils.

Sturmtag
11.6 x 30 inch
Soft Pastel
© Astrid Volquardsen

Casey Klahn:

I think Astrid's outlook is that of a pioneer for contemporary pastels in Germany. Her positive attitude is evident in the vast scope and beauty of her landscapes. She has that urge to create with her medium, with faith that the public will follow her vision. I know that the work being done in other countries to promote pastel will eventually create a sudden and rewarding market in Germany, and Astrid at the forefront.

Who are some artists that inspire you that use pastels?

Astrid Volquardsen:

I can't say that there is just one pastel artist, who inspires me. When I was in England 15 years ago, (there was no Amazon.com so far :-), I run across a pastel instruction book. The pictures of Sally Strand left a great impression on me. This impression was so big, I still can recall the look of this tiny book shop. My remaining time in London I didn't spend with sightseeing, but in search of bookshops with painting instruction books or anything that had to do with pastels. The customs officer at Heathrow must have thought that I had gone mad, when he saw my suitcase, packed with books!Realism in art hasn't had a very high prestige and there in this book shop, I saw what I always wanted to do and paint. Realistic looking pastel pictures.

I love Sally Strand for the way she paints light and keeps to the values. It always amazes me.

Another painter I highly admire is the French pastelist Claude Texier. Again, all her paintings are about light and luminosity.

Then there is Daniel Greene and Gwenneth Barth. How can someone possibly paint these portraits and capture the likeness and even one's personality? I had the pleasure to watch Gwenneth Barth during a demonstration in Paris last year. It was very interesting for me to see, how she builds up the layers of pastel. Like Daniel Greene she blends only with the pastel sticks. That's something I would like to add to my work.

In Margaret Dyers work I love the way she uses the colors and her loose pastel strokes. From Wolf Kahn and your pictures Casey, I feel inspired by the way you both use color and are finding color combinations that seem to be so easily found.

So from all these artist, I take bits and pieces and all this flows into my work now or maybe in the future.

Interview to be continued in the next post.

Interview with Astrid

Astrid Volquardsen at the shore of Föhr, Germany.

On Monday I will post my exclusive interview with German marine artist, Astrid Volquardsen.

Germany!

It gives me great pleasure to post about German pastel art. With the world's softest (and one of my favorite) pastel brand, Schmincke, manufactured there, and as the historic bed of the pastel medium, Germany is an important art hub. German painter Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) is credited with the essential invention of modern pastels.

Expressionism is a key art movement originating from Germany.

Wall Panel, 1914
o/c
Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian artist whose growth and style was solidified during his long residencies in Germany. He was the first abstractionist.

Astrid Volquardsen is a contemporary pastelist in Germany. Link.


German information center, US German Embassy.
Some of my favorite pastellists either originate from or frequent German soil:
Wolf Kahn, born in Stuttgart.
Gesa Helms, frequents Germany and posts landscapes from there.
Casey Klahn, second generation German-American.

Petra Voegtle
Not a pastel artist, but very prolific and an indispensable gateway for English language blogging from Germany.