This past month, The Maryland Pastel Society invited me to instruct a 4 day plein workshop, after the scheduled instructor had to cancel. It was such a fabulous few days! 4 days of 80 degree sunshine, wonderful talented students, and 9 to 5 painting.
The intention of plein air painting is capturing the time and place and atmospheric conditions at that moment in time. This enhances the emotional feeling behind your paintings. Since photographs don’t tell the whole truth, especially portraying value and soft edges, observation is the best way to help correctly convey the scene. These paintings were done quickly, 1 1/2 hours max just getting down the initial intention and then moving on.
We painted in and around New Hope, and Bucks County PA. The autumn leaves were in peak season.
Day 1 demo- monochromatic underpainting
Day 2 demo -pastel underpainting
day 3- on gray toned paper
I was fortunate to be able to participate in this workshop. I think/hope I learned a lot. Nancy took a lot of time with each one of us individually, and that was very encouraging. I need to practice, practice, practice–which is what she said.
Nancy is a gifted artist and instructor. We were so fortunate she could come to work with us. I learned so much during the 4 days, took lots of notes, created 4 paintings, 2 that sold on our last day– a huge thrill for me! I would highly recommend a workshop with Nancy. She is articulate, works very hard to meet every person’s needs. We had a great time together with fantastic weather and beautiful scenes. Hope to see her again sometime!