Fall Foliage Better Late Than Never

Autumn Slope 

@ 10" x 9" 

Pastel on Black Canson

Casey Klahn 

iPh photo

It is an unusual thing for me to work on black and also on Canson.  I had a very talented friend explain to me her method of getting good results on Canson, and with some extra effort I resolved this one to my liking.  It is a scene from my studio north window from about 2 months ago.

By the way, if you saw this video of Sheila M. Evans working in pastel, and you enjoy her work, you have an opportunity to vote for her in the Best of 2012 contest at Making a Mark.  Polls close about 2.5 hours from now!

Sheila M. Evans Video Illumination

Sheila M. Evans is very talented, and her illuminated flora have no peer.    

Reclaiming La Carte

 Not yet named; reclaimed La Carte and a new prairie image.

Save money and have fun by re-working your Sennelier La Carte paper.  Some papers can be reclaimed by pastel artists; new artwork can be made on top of failed images.  But, many artists don't consider Sennelier La Carte durable enough to reclaim.  To worsen this impression, La Carte is water hating, and so washing off an image isn't considered.

This artwork was done on re-claimed Sennelier La Carte paper.

Sometimes Weather
9" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn 

I want to introduce you to the many ways you can re-purpose your valuable Sennelier La Carte paper, as I have been doing successfully for the past few months.  Additionally, I have achieved new techniques from these methods - rewarding me with fresh ideas and images.


With the Great Recession in full pace, I have been searching for ways to save on material costs in the studio.  I have been turning to my stock of Rives BFK, Legion and other papers. 


I have always enjoyed Wallis, which is hands down the most durable sanded paper available.  You can wipe, wash and re-use it to your heart's delight.  Not so much the sensitive French sanded ground, La Carte.  La Carte is a professional, acid-free and colorfast board that has a sanded texture created with vegetable matter.  I prefer it for my own methods - it is the surface most suitable for my style of both heavy handed application of color, and also gentle scumbling and overlaying.  Nothing beats whispering a Diane Townsend Terrage pastel over it's grainy surface, mixing optically with the under layers.  Now add the rich pinks and blues from your Sennelier à l'écu sticks and you have advanced to the seventh heaven of artistry. 

 Erratic Boulder

6.25" x 8.5"

Pastel & Charcoal, re-claimed La Carte Paper

Casey Klahn

The following methods have proven successful for reclaiming Sennelier La Carte: 


Identify abandoned works that you are going to reclaim.  I look for lighter pastel coverage, although I have reused heavily worked surfaces, too.  It is just harder to find enough tooth available, but it helps if there is an image there that you can imagine as an under painting - it may become a brilliant foundation for your new art.  Read on to learn my tricks for finding more tooth in your used Sennie paper.


Brush away the existing pastel dust with a flat brush.  A smooth, cheap paint brush works great - I work the surface one direction at a time, and tap the paper to release stuck dust.  Repeat this process to see how much you can remove, and you'll soon get an idea of how exciting this method can be.

Wipe the old pastel off gently with tissue, a paper towel or a chamois cloth.  My favored method is with the tissue, after I have already removed as much as possible with a brush.  There will be bits of tissue remaining, and that can easily be brushed away - especially if you were gentle. 

Wash the old image away, as another option.  The proper solvent is Turpenoid, which is low odor, and works fine for under painting and blending your pastel on La Carte.  I have had some success with this method, but I do find that it fills the tooth more than the brushing or wiping methods.


Still having trouble getting your pastel to take?  I have found two more methods to reclaim my cleaned-up old La Carte.

Spray the surface with fixative.  Right now, my favorite spray is No-Odor Blair, which I can use in the studio with minimum discomfort.  I also like Spectrafix, but at the point where I am starting to add pastel to a reclaimed surface, I want the most coverage I can get from my spray.  Another method would be to apply several layers of the Spectrafix.  For subsequent layers, after my colors have been established, I use Lascaux spray, which changes my colors the least.  I don't want to add spray at the end of my work, though, since the highlights need to pop.

Sand the surface to bring back just enough texture to accept more pastel.  I tried a sandpaper block made of foam, and it actually worked great!  The finer side of a two-sided block works, and I have found that it is only needed on small areas and not the whole painting.  The conditions will be that you have developed your painting, and will have a nicely resolved artwork, except that a limited area will be dull and resist new marks.  Like with the brush, sand in one direction only, to avoid tearing the paper.


Now consider some new techniques brought out by reclaiming old La Carte. In many cases, I have created new works that allow old colors to bleed or to show through.  Some become vardøgr images, and some provide rich under paintings (red under green in a tree).  I have taken to imagining my new image around an old composition, often turning the old painting upside down or sideways.

A crowded build-up of art in my studio.  I may be handy with supports, but can't get around to putting up that 1 piece of drywall!  Any guesses on who I was trying to draw on that big one?

Did you sneeze on your La Carte pastel painting?  Then you may have run up against the dreaded white hole of melted-off surface that has plagued many Sennelier users.  See this post with repair solutions for damaged works (h/t Sheila M. Evans).


My images at Sennelier: here.

Sheila M. Evans - Interview

Coral Reef No 2
Pastel
Sheila M. Evans

Duet No 3
Pastel
Sheila M. Evans

Twining
Pastel
Sheila M. Evans

Sheila M. Evans, PSA, NPS

It gives me great pleasure to bring Sheila M. Evans' botanical pastels to your attention. If you are a pastel artist yourself, you may have already seen her work gracing the cover of Dakota Art's catalog, or in the October issue of The Pastel Journal.

Sheila provides the following in answer to my questions.

"First, thanks for doing this interview for the blog: Pastel. Is there anything you'd like to add to The Pastel Journal article featuring you from two issues ago?" (Casey Klahn)

I'd like to clarify that the Ambient series is my newest and most current series. Not that this matters to anyone besides myself.

"What camera are you using for those macro photos you take for reference?"

It's a Sony Cybershot 3.3 Megapixel camera. I'm using the lens that came with it. I usually end up using very small portions of the photos I take, so we are talking about some seriously low-res reference photos. But I like it that way. I think it keeps me from getting too bogged down in details. Once I took some really great reference photos--super sharp, nicely composed, usable just as they were. They resulted in some terrible paintings! Well, not terrible, maybe, but definitely too futzy and detailed for my taste.

"You were listed as liking Mucha and Monet? Give me another artist, without an 'M', from history whom you follow."

I've always been blown away by John Singer Sargent.

"Now give me a contemporary artist whom you admire."

Albert Handell--I'm amazed at the depth he achieves in his paintings and how little he seems to have to do to accomplish it.

"What first brought you to the pastel medium? Did your classes at Gonzaga introduce you to them?"

Sort of. Gonzaga didn't offer classes in pastel, but there were these great figure-drawing classes taught by Bob Gilmore. He still teaches them, actually. It was more like an open studio than anything, and there were a few adult students auditing the classes who worked in pastel, which was interesting. But what really got me started was the gift of a box of pastels from my parents. I took those into the drawing classes and started timidly experimenting with color in my drawings. It was still just line work for the most part. A few years after I graduated I picked the pastels back up again, but this time I applied more of what I'd learned in my oil painting classes, and worked from dried flowers rather than live models. That's when things really started to take off.

"Tell us about your palette."

I have several hundred pastels and about 30 I use regularly. Most of them live in the boxes they came in and my workhorses sit in semi-sorted chaos in a Dakota box by my easel. I have three sections of pastels which are divided into red/oranges, green/turquoises and purples. The black and my vine charcoal sit in the grooves between the mesh trays of the box. It's mostly Unison, but I have plenty of Schminkes and Senneliers, and a few Diane Townsends and others in the mix.

"Tell us what the Sheila M. Evans box of 12 pastels would be like - some of it's colors and the brand."

Well, ideally I'd start with Rowney's intense black, but since they've reformulated their line I haven't seen them available in open stock, so I've had to do without. So let's see. A black (I've been using Art Spectrum's). Also from Art Spectrum, the darkest shade of Flinders Blue Violet. From Schminke, the pure shade of caput mortuum hell (I can't think of the English name but the German one amuses me so I remember it.) Also the Schminke pure quinacridone violet. The rest would be Unison, dark brownish reds, ochre greens, blue greens and purples.

"If the Unison factory burned down tomorrow (God forbid), what would your favorite pastel brand be, and give us a couple of reasons."

Yikes! That's a scary thought. Well, I suppose it could happen, even in rainy England, so I guess my next choice would be Schminke. They have some great subtle, and not-so-subtle, colors, and a very consistent texture which is great. Sometimes they are too soft in certain situations, but you always know what you are getting. And it doesn't hurt that my local art store has them in open stock, either.

"You once divulged your repair method for Senellier La Carte paper to me. Could you give us that here?

I have a couple of tricks with the LaCarte. One I learned from another artist or maybe an early issue of Pastel journal. That was if the surface got hit with a drop of water and came off, leaving the shiny white underlayer. In that case I would hit the spot with a bit of fixative and let that dry, then touch up with pastel. It allows the pastel to stick to the surface again.

My other LaCarte trick is for when the texture is too rough. When I first started using LaCarte, it had this great, consistently velvety texture. Then, I started getting batches that were a bit rougher and less uniform. The rougher texture was harder to work with and when it came time to frame the pieces, I found it didn't grip the pastel as well. I had a lot of trouble with dust drifting. At first I just ordered different colors but eventually all the paper I got had this new texture. Out of frustration one day I took a piece of sandpaper and went over the whole sheet of LaCarte. It worked perfectly: I had my old LaCarte back!

"What is your favorite, or preferred La Carte color?"

Sienna. It's warm but neutral and a good middle value.

"What's on your easel right now?"

Would you believe, an oil painting?

Sheila is a Signature Member of the prestigious Pastel Society of America, and of the Northwest Pastel Society.

Evans has had two consecutive and recent honorable mentions in The Pastel Journal 100 competition. She won the Dakota Art Pastels catalog cover competition and that's why every time I see my favorite catalog I say, "I know that artist!" October's issue of The Pastel Journal has a feature article about her beautiful botanical works and the process she uses to compose them.

Sheila adds Spokane ArtFest, Bellevue ArtsFair, Sausalito and Sun Valley to her art fairs, and carried home a banner from the latter for Best in Drawing. Gallery exhibits in Seattle, Portland and Spokane featured her work recently, and she currently has a hanging of large pieces at the Kress Gallery in Spokane's Riverpark Square.

On a personal note, I met Sheila at a Spokane pastel workshop (taught by Jennifer Evenhus) and it was evident to myself and all the class that she was an artist of powers. Her figure work is wonderful, and I hope that becomes part of her ouvre in the future. Now, Sheila and I show up in the same art fairs throughout the West and in that way I get to see what she's painting on a frequent basis. On the art fair circuit, the pastelists tend to stick together since we are a peculiar bunch.


Link:
Anisotrope Studio, Sheila's Web Pages.


Administrative Note:
The template of this blog has changed to a Lefty Stretch model. It does some harm to the uniformity between this blog and The Colorist, however for some reason the right column of the former template was crowding the main text at this blog, but not at my other one. Additionally, the default size of the font was inexplicably small. The stretch version may either solve that, or somehow make it more tolerable when I forget to change the font sizes manually.