Nancy Nowak Fine Art

IAPS 2013

It’s been a few days since I’ve come home from my wonderful week at the IAPS 2013 convention in Albuquerque, NM. IAPS (International Association of Pastel Societies) is held every other year and is filled with workshops, classes and demos, as well as a fantastic multi vendor display of art supplies at the “candy store”.

My buddy, Barbara Jaenicke, and I flew in Tuesday afternoon and immediately met up with the nicest group of pastelists from all over the country.

We both signed up for a 2 day workshop with Terri Ford, newly named “Eminent Pastelist”, for all the highly awarded work she has produced. I have been a long time admirer of her work and was thrilled to be able to learn from her.

Terri’s class was on underpainting, an important foundation of the painting process. She starts the process figuring out the composition from her photo and then with just her finger, she visualizes and outlines the placement on the paper. It’s also important to figure out what you want to say or express in your landscape. Is it about the tree? Or is it about the scene? Or is it about the foliage?

Terri loves to use her NuPastel 305, Spruce Blue to do her her monochromatic value drawing on Wallis Belgium Mist. It is the closest thing to black but still has a “color”. Anything with a white pigment added to it tends to flatten out the color. She then uses denatured alcohol to set it, brushing in the direction of the foliage, not worrying if it is larger than her actual drawing for she can always sculpt in the finished shapes. With this foundation, she then finds colors that are “deeper, darker, richer,” to paint with. They seem to pop and sing on top of the dark base color.

The 2nd day, Terri did a demo using Wallis white paper and a color underpainting.

Here are some pics from Terri’s demo.

Here are my 2 pieces from the class….

My class painting- 1st day with monochromatic underpainting – “Cool Breezes”

My class painting 2nd day with color underpainting – “Awakening”