THE
PASTEL PRESS
Newsletter
of the Oklahoma Pastel Society
August
2007
If
you missed last month’s meeting, you missed a good one! Gary Lennon’s landscape painting
demonstration was fun and definitely informative. He shared with us some techniques to use when painting
scenes with extreme contrasts as well as showing us how he creates a great
starry sky. Thanks, Gary! And thanks also go to those who brought
snacks for the meeting – the yummy food was greatly appreciated. In case you’ve forgotten, there were
some pretty intense thunderstorms that rolled through the OKC area not long
before our meeting last month. Some
very cool by-products of those storms were awesome cloud formations and (at
least where I was on Broadway Extension) one of the most amazing sunsets
I’ve seen in a while. Even
if you didn’t have a camera handy to get some shots of the clouds and
sunset, I hope you had the chance to see them – not something that will
be forgotten soon!
August
Program
Have
you ever thought about entering a juried art show…then realized that you
couldn’t possibly get slides of your work taken, developed and back in
time to meet the deadline?
Hopefully our meeting on August 13th will take care of that
problem for you!
Jan
Hutchinson – yep, our recently elected president – has graciously
offered to shoot slides of some of your unframed pastel artwork. Jan (and a few others) will bring
easels, black mat board, film camera(s) and rolls of slide film to our August
meeting. You just have to bring a
few of your unframed pastel masterpieces. There will be a small fee to cover the costs of the slide
film and developing.
Something
else will be decided at the August meeting: the Oklahoma Pastel Society’s entry in TAG-The Art
Groups Poster Contest for the 2007 “Art on the Bricktown Canal”
show! Please bring your Bricktown
or art show/festival themed painting to the August meeting where the votes of
those attending will decide which great painting will go on to TAG’s
August meeting, where their Board of Directors will select the artwork to be
used to promote the October 6th event. TAG plans on purchasing the winning piece from the artist.
Snacks
for our August 13th meeting will be provided by Donna Connelly,
Roseanna Kaiser and Anita Tackett – you just need to bring the beverage
of your choice. The meeting will
begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Will Rogers Garden Center (if you need directions,
please call or email Sue Ann at 405-831-9555 or sueann1022@cox.net.) Remember:
bring YOURSELF, your unframed art you’d like to have slides of,
your entry for the TAG poster contest and your beverage. See you on August 13th!
Oops
– almost forgot! Please
consider being on a committee – workshops, shows/exhibits, programs,
etc. The more of us that are
involved, the easier the work is for everyone. And
speaking of committees, VP Stuart Johnson has the refreshment committee lined
up through October. In September (the
program will be great; you SO don’t want to miss it!), Shirley Martin, Sheila
Minnich and Pam Brewer have volunteered to bring snacks; and Nancy Boyer, Judi
Mott, Patrick Calloway and Sue Ann Rodgers will bring the munchies in
October. Thanks!
Workshop
– Terry Ludwig on August 17, 18 & 19!
Yeah! It’s almost here - Terry will be
teaching his three-day workshop on August 17, 18 and 19, 2007 in Oklahoma City
at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum! At this time, our workshop is full and
Janie Schmitz, OPS treasurer, has a waiting list. You can get on that waiting list by sending her a deposit
check (which won’t be cashed unless a space opens up for you in the
class; please see the “Dues are Due!” section for mailing address.) Terry will also be teaching a workshop for
the Ozark Pastel Society only a few days after he leaves OKC. If you can’t be at his workshop
here in Oklahoma City, you can contact Joey Frisillo, president of the Ozark
Pastel Society, about their workshop with Terry at 918-242-3205 or by email at joey@joeyfrisillo.com.
Terry’s
OKC workshop will focus on landscapes for two days and either still life or
portraiture for one day – depends on what the majority of the students
want for the third day.
This
workshop will be held at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. If you have any questions, need
directions, whatever, please email Janie Schmitz at janieops@sbcglobal.net or call her at
405-943-0330. The Prix de West Art
Show and Sale will still be on display when we’re there for Terry’s
workshop; the museum just unveiled a larger-than-life bronze statue of John
Wayne; Terry will be bringing some of his wonderful pastels. This is going to be SO fun!
Who
would YOU like to have here to teach a workshop?
Please
send us names (and any contact information you have) of artists you’d
like the to-be-formed Workshop Committee to try to schedule for future
workshops here in Oklahoma.
We’ve got some wonderful artists who are members of OPS and who
teach too – Dale Martin, Mitsuno Reedy, Ron Chapman, Becky Way, Joey
Frisillo, Sheila Minich, to name a few.
We’ve also received information about possible workshops from
Jerry Brown (from Lee’s Summit, MO; he was a prize winner at this
year’s Paseo Arts Festival and does wonderful work) and Mike Mahon (from
the Amarillo area; Mike’s workshops concentrate on the process, not the
medium.) With your input, the new
workshop committee will have plenty of ideas to get started with.
One-day
only - Lorenzo Chavez workshop!
The
Oklahoma Pastel Society is so lucky to have Lorenzo Chavez as our
demonstration artist for our September 10th meeting (told you it
would be great, didn’t we?!?!?)
So what would be even better?
Well, the headline gave it away – Lorenzo will be teaching a
one-day (September 11th) plein air workshop for us! New member Larry Layton called Lorenzo
and got the ball rolling; Jan Hutchinson then worked out the cost and number of
participants with Lorenzo. So,
here’s what you need to know:
we had to have 12 confirmed participants to make this
workshop a “go.” And
we DO have those “have-to-have” 12 people. Since Lorenzo will take up to 15 in a
class, we’ve got THREE more openings for anyone who is interested. The cost for the one day is $140 for
OPS members and $170 for non-members.
Lorenzo is getting ready for a big show next year (he’s not
teaching ANY workshops before his show in 2008); we were able to talk him into
this demo and workshop simply because he’ll be in OKC for his opening at
a local gallery, so we are extremely fortunate to have him!
If
you’d like to sign up for one of the remaining places in Lorenzo’s
workshop, please send a check for $75, payable to “Oklahoma Pastel
Society,” to OPS, P.O. Box 75696, Oklahoma City, OK 73147. As soon as the location for this workshop
is set, we’ll let you know – it will be in the OKC metro area.
TAG
Shows and Other Stuff
Check
out TAG’s website for all sorts of information. On that website, www.tagoklahoma.org,
you’ll find downloadable information and entry form for the October 6,
2007 “Art on the Bricktown Canal” show, demonstrations and sale. This year – the third year
for this show – the venue for the event has expanded. The Oklahoma Redhawks and the Bricktown
Ballpark have invited TAG to have as many artists as possible showing their
works, as well as demonstrating how they MAKE their works, on the
“apron” of the Ballpark that fronts along Mickey Mantle Drive! This is great news – especially
for anyone who doesn’t want to have to deal with moving your things from
street to canal level and then back up again. The entry fee is only $25 and, while this ISN’T a
juried show, all artworks shown at this show must be family friendly. The entry deadline for the “Art on
the Bricktown Canal” show is September 15th.
TAG
at The Colonies in July 2007
TAG’s
show at The Colonies was quite successful for one of our members – Sheila
Minnich’s painting “Five’s a Crowd” was chosen by juror
and judge Maryanne Moore as “Best of Show.” Congratulations, Sheila, on creating
such a wonderful painting and receiving this well deserved honor!
Poster
Art for TAG’s Bricktown Event
TAG
will be selecting art from one of its members to use on the posters and other
advertising to promote the “Art on the Bricktown Canal” event set
for October 6th.
It’s been suggested that the art have a Bricktown or art-event
theme.
The
TAG board voted to select the winning artwork at their August 21st
meeting. Especially exciting is that TAG’s
board also voted to purchase the selected artwork – for at least
$250.
Each
member organization is allowed to have ONE piece of art at the
“selection” meeting (sounds like the NFL draft, doesn’t it!) So, here’s what you need to
do: bring your artwork to the OPS
meeting on August 13th where our members will vote to select the
artwork that will be the Oklahoma Pastel Society’s entry for the TAG
Bricktown show artwork. If
possible, have your artwork in a clip-frame; protects your work but is easy to
unframe for photographing the original art. Good luck and happy painting!
Currently,
the Oklahoma Pastel has two representatives to TAG – Janie Schmitz and
Debbie Flynn. Each organization
should have THREE reps to TAG. You
do the math – we need one more! Please consider giving this representative thing a try
– it’s truly not hard.
Membership
News and Annual Dues are DUE!
Oklahoma
Pastel Society rosters were sent to all members a few months ago – either
as an attachment to the electronic version of the newsletter or as a separate
hard-copy mailing. If any of
your information as shown in the roster is incorrect, please let me know;
we’ll publish the corrections in the next “The Pastel Press.”
Annual
dues for membership in the Oklahoma Pastel Society are a low
$30.00. Please note: if you are a brand-new member who
has joined OPS between February 1 and May 31, 2007, you’ll already be “in”
for
our membership year beginning June 1, 2007! If you’ve been an OPS member for longer than that,
please send your check, in the amount of $30.00 and payable to
“OPS” to: Oklahoma
Pastel Society, P.O. Box 75696, Oklahoma City, OK 73147.
And
we have several new members; please make them welcome to our group:
Pam
Brewer
Phone: 405-620-3255
Brewer1147@aol.com (Sorry Pam – I’ll get all
of
your info for the roster!)
Reida
Jones
Rjones23@cox.net (And Reida – I need the rest of your info for the
roster too!)
Mary
Staples
8301
N. Council, #1313
Oklahoma
City, OK 73132
Birthday: January 20th
Larry
Layton
1701
Tamara Road
Guthrie,
OK 73044
Home: 405-282-2930
Work: 405-521-6768
And
please update your roster for Leona Russell’s new email address: leona715@cox.net
Website
– Show off your Art!
Judi
Mott,
webmaster for OPS, has suggested that in addition to each member’s ONE
FREE painting on the website’s gallery, for only $25 per year, you can
have a page with up to FIVE of your paintings on it. Please call or email Judi at 405-350-2095 or landondale@atlinkwifi.com to get
the details on getting your artwork to her. And make sure to go to www.okpastel.org
and check out the website; Judi is always making upgrades and updates. Remember: if you have questions or would like to ask Judi to add
something to the website calendar, you can contact her at 405-350-2095 or via
email at landondale@atlinkwifi.com. Thanks Judi!
Shows
& Events in the Pastel Community
We’ve
been waiting and waiting on a final word from Gabriella’s for the exact
dates we can show our works. Turns
out that, due to “possible/probable” changes in “management
and/or ownership” of Gabriella’s, the current owner has decided to
NOT have any shows after the one now on display comes down around August 15th. Needless to say, we are ALL disappointed
about this development.
Unfortunately it took what seemed like forever to get this decision from
Gabriella’s and while we hated to scrap plans for this late summer show,
we didn’t have much, if any, choice. But...between October and Memorial Day, OPS is sponsoring at
least THREE shows!
Our
annual show at The Great Frame Up, on N. Rockwell, will open with a reception
on Friday, October 12 and come down on Saturday, October 20th.
Then,
in time for Paseo’s December Artwalk will be the Oklahoma Pastel Society
“Small(er) Works Show” at the AKA Gallery. We’ll be able to begin hanging
the show on December 5, the Artwalk is December 7th and 8th,
and
Ashley (of AKA Gallery) would like for our work to stay in the gallery through
January 5th.
And
after the weather turns warmer, we’ll move across the street and up a
block to the Paseo Art Space Gallery for our second show there. In May 2008 our show will open in time
for that month’s Artwalk on May 2nd and 3rd. At this time we’re not certain
exactly when this show will come down – that date depends on if the Art
Space Gallery will once again be used as headquarters for the Paseo Arts
Festival during Memorial Day weekend.
We’ll
have information about The Great Frame Up show – entry fee, forms, awards,
etc. – as soon as possible.
And when each of the other shows gets a little bit closer, that same
information will be available for each.
The
Pastel Journal magazine always encourages pastel groups to send them
photos/slides/digital images of the prize-winning paintings from their
shows. So, any of Oklahoma Pastel
Society’s prize winners who have images of their prize-winning works need
to contact Jan Hutchinson at jan.hutchinson@wywlt.com.
Did
you know that there is an IAPS Video Highlight page? Well, until we received the email from
Richard Miller at Armadillo Art, we didn’t know either! Go to the following website: http://www.armadilloart.com/iaps2007/
where you can see, access, whatever 39 videos. Definitely something to check out.
The
Amarillo Art Institute is sponsoring a week-long workshop with Master
Pastelist Ramon Kelley October 6 through 10, 2007. Here’s what Marsha Clements of the Amarillo Art
Institute says, “Those who truly want to learn to paint could do no
better than to stand next to a master and watch him create one of his stunning
works. Stand close and watch his
powerful strokes of color and understand his motives behind them. Listen to his rationale for what he
does, how he poses and lights his model, and why he chooses the color for the
drape.” The cost of this
workshop is $500. Please contact
Marsha via email at aai@clearwire.net,
through their website www.amarilloartinstitute.com,
by phone at 806-354-8802 and by mail at Amarillo Art Institute, 3701 Plains
Blvd., Suite 117, Amarillo, TX 79102.
Big
things are planned for future meetings…
Painting
en plein air
at Will Rogers Park, visiting a frame shop for ideas regarding the framing of
your pastels – these are some of the programs planned for the upcoming
months. And don’t forget to
bring your unframed work to the next meeting!
Shooting Slides of your Artwork
6:30 p.m., Monday, August 13, 2007
Will Rogers Garden Center