Pastel Scribbler Feb2013

Ryan Evans has helped the Scribbler Team with layout for a while,

and we are happy to announce that he is now very much part of the

team. We really appreciate his fresh and modern layout, which you

will see more of in this issue and in the future.

We meet the Get Dusty Winter challenge winner Mario Vukelic,

who shares how he makes things happen around him. We shall

meet Malcolm Jarvis, who won Best Composition, in the next issue.

PGE members are invited to give special attention to the informa-

tion in this issue regarding the Annual General Meeting, and the revised Get Dusty rules.

When we attend workshops, we do it for different reasons, like learn a style, or get new fresh

ideas. Elisabeth Blass writes about one of her workshop experiences, and what she got out of

it.

I tend to say that painting is a lifetime journey

of learning and discovering. One way to do it

is to work from other people’s photos, and

challenge oneself to make changes to it and

make a painting one’s own. See more in “You

are the boss”.

Happy painting,

Charlotte Herczfeld

Editorial Scribble

PGE has a new sponsor! We are pleased to announce that the PGE's

new sponsor is Girault Pastels. This means

that the Get Dusty challenge prize each

month for the next year will be a set of 50

Girault Pastels.

These soft pastels, made in France, have a

history dating back to 1780. They are very

versatile pastels, excellent both for covering

large areas and for fine detail work. Using

over 80 pure colours hundreds of shades and

tints are created by blending the colours with

white, black or

other colours.

These pastels

are used by

many eminent

French pas-

tellists and

come highly recommended.

For more information about Girault pastels visit:- www.pastelsgirault.com

The Pastel Scribbler P a s t e l G u i l d o f E u r o p e F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 3

The Scribbler Team This issue is made by: Charlotte Herczfeld, Editor, writing, Ruth Mann, editing, writing, and proof-reading Ryan Evans, layout Contact: [email protected]

Editorial scribble

PGE has a new

sponsor!

2

Get Dusty Winter

Challenge results

3

Get Dusty informa-

tion

5

Meet Get Dusty

Winner– Mario

Vukelic

6

Workshop experi-

ence with Elizabeth

Blass

9

You are the boss! 10

Creative Bubbles

PGE update

12

13

Inside this issue:

Cover image:

Detail from Cley Cottages by Malcolm Jarvis

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r P a g e 2

P a g e 3

Get Dusty Winter Challenge Results The winner of the Winter 2012/2012 Get Dusty challenge – Free choice – is Mario Vuke-lic, Croatia, and the winner of the award for Best Composition is Malcolm Jarvis, Eng-land. Both are awarded prizes.

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

1st place: Mario Vukelic, Physalis Blue

Comment: The strong hues and composition of this painting are initially very compelling, but a longer look proves it’s not merely made up of color and contrast. The painting delights with charming rhythms, fascinating negative spaces, excellent draftsmanship, useful textures, and a variety of technical approaches, utilizing the strengths of pastel. Subtleties keep the eye circling around this stable yet dynamic composition that stands firmly in space yet invites us to visit each branch in turn. The painterly quality draws on soft and crisp strokes, while grayed colors host the bright orange-blue complement.

Best Composition: Malcolm Jarvis, Cley Cottages

Comment: This playful yet expressive composition brings more to our understanding of the artist’s ex-perience of this little town, utilizing cubism to express different aspects of the place, while synthesizing the whole impression. The harmony and visual continuity of the cottages lets the viewer blithely enjoy the place without getting lost or becoming distracted. An excel-lent use of color, contrast, and detail draws us into the area of greatest interest, comprised of four crea-tively overlapped sections, while the shapes all help to thrust or attract the eye toward the center of interest.

2nd place: Katerina Pyatakova, Intuition

Comment: This painting is a shape-driven abstraction derived from a strong rendering of reality. It sculpts space, allowing the eye to travel easily over the liquid planes in a dynamic S-shape that suggests the fluidity of the water from the start. The powerful movement of the water is suggested by directional strokes, hard and soft edges and dark and light passages that create height, depth and distance. The artist has made excellent use of translucence and opacity, with a good technical ap-proach to handling pastels, respecting blending and scumbling.

P a g e 4 T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

3rd place: Julie Hodgson, “Happy Days”

Comment: This is beautifully rendered, with accuracy that suggests the artist caught a likeness of each child. The shallow depth of field and clear delineation of the space each one occupies places the two faces on “sweet spots” on the page, and the gesture suggests the weight of the toddler and the charming relation-ship between the two. Using not only excellent skin tones but great color reflections, all set on a unifying background color, the artist creates a lively palette, suggesting childlike vibrancy in every aspect.

Finalist: Charlotte Herczfeld, Winter Passage

Comment: The lyrical Impressionistic color gives this simple scene a romantic sense, suggesting the ideal amid the real. There’s an admirable focus on the light and how it describes the landscape elements. The artist is not overly enthralled with the man-made bridge, but gives loving attention to the way the light de-scribes the trees, bushes, snow and sky, as well. The composition invites the viewer to meander up into the area of interest and linger, yet creates depth with soft transitions into the distance.

Finalist: Jill Harker, Chance

Comment: The most endearing qualities of the breed are evident in this painting, giving an overall sense of the character of this dog. Crisp edges, lovingly painted details such as raggedy fur, sparkling eyes, lop ear, and even the friendly, almost smiling mouth, create an engaging portrait. The placement on the paper makes a dynamic composition, with the nose thrust to one side and the eyes looking at us. The background suggest an earthy, active dog without trying to describe the place, and enhances the eye color well.

Finalist: Marie France Oosterhof, Lost in My Dreams

Comment: Bold contrast, strong shapes, and aggressive color all combine to admirably express this subject. Contrasting dark and light values, as well as the brilliant touches of color, create focus and depth. Calligraphic strokes strengthen the piece, expressing the temperament of the animal. The white highlights and vibrant reds compel the viewer around the face and horns, drawing us back with the brilliant yellow calligraphy. Even the artist’s signature functions as a component of the composition.

Overall, I found this to be a very strong showing of pastels. I’m delighted to find the quality and vari-ety of work here. It was challenging to choose the winners, particularly the finalists, and I would have mentioned others if given the space (Senses Aroused, Silver Bowl and Grapes, and Tuscany Fantasy, Twilight Glow, and Decay.)

I hope the PGE continues to promote understanding of the versatile and delightful pastel medium, as well as bringing together European pastelists, and creating a great resource as you educate artists about pastels.

As I was often heard to say to my pastel class, “Keep going, gang!” It’s clearly evident this is a vi-brant, active group. Thank you for the opportunity to judge this challenge.

Deborah Secor

January 28, 2013

P a g e 5 T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

Some of the participants in the Get Dusty Winter

challenge were surprised to find their entries

removed after the deadline. This may seem like a

new and stricter application of the rules. In reality, it

isn’t so, as entries which do not comply with the

rules have always been quietly disqualified, as the

judges have been notified of which entries to

disregard. This time, there was a guest judge, and

the disqualified entries were removed in order to

make things easier for the judge. Also, removing the

pictures makes it clearer to the participants that the

rules need to be checked.

The two most common mistakes are:

a) The size of the uploaded file is too small. It should

be as close to 800 pixels on the longest side as you

can make it. If it is too large, the system will either

shrink it to 800 pixels, or tell you it is too big.

b) The actual size of the painting is not written in

the comments field. The judge needs this

information, as what is possible in a painting which

is 50x70 cm needs to be handled differently in a

miniature painting of 5x7 cm, and it impacts how

the painting is judged.

The Get Dusty Team will not chase after ten people

and ask each to comply with the rules. Just like in

any other contest, it is the responsibility of the artist

entering the contest to see to it that their entry is

correct.

In the Winter challenge there were a few cases

where the entries had been critiqued publicly

online, and where there was cause to assume that

subsequent changes in the paintings were made as

a result of the advice given. A Get Dusty entry

should be your own painting from start to finish,

and completed without any tutoring or advice. We

realize that none of us live in a vacuum, and that

people around us will comment on our paintings

within our hearing. If a spouse or friends comments,

that is generally no problem, but if the commenting

person is a fairly accomplished artist and we do

change our painting, well... we may want to

consider not entering it. In the end, it is up to our

own conscience, and a question of trust.

This rule is about the integrity of the PGE. We know

each other, some of us are friends, and it is vital that

we treat every entry exactly the same and apply the

rules to everyone.

The best advice the Get Dusty Team can give is to

check the Get Dusty rules at the PGE website, and to

ask the team if we still have questions. There is a

thread in the Forum for these kinds of question, and

we are welcome to post there.

Get Dusty and Disqualification

Get Dusty Schedule The theme for March 2013 is:

Category: Landscape Challenge: A Seascape

Deadline 25th March 2013

The theme for April 2013 is: Category: Portrait

Challenge: to be announced Deadline 25th April 2013

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P a g e 6

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Physalis Blue

Meet Get Dusty Winner: Mario Vukelic

Mario lives in Croatia with his wife and small son. He is working for an interna-tional company, but still finds time to paint in pas-tel, both on paper and on concrete. What was your inspiration for your winning painting, Physalis Blue?

The flowers are actually

from my mom's backyard

and I’m looking at this

bouquet every day. I’m not

a really big fan of dried

flowers but since my mom

gave it to my wife I have

no choice but to adore it.

One sunny morning before

rushing for work I made a

quick setup and took

around 10 photos. I

wanted to have back-

ground very close to flow-

ers to mix the shapes of

flowers and shadows.

One does not see many

paintings with physalis.

And to be honest I did not

even know the name of

that flower until I finished

the painting. Then my wife

asked around and found

out the name.

What materials did you use for this painting?

The paper used for this

painting was also new ter-

ritory for me. During my

recent visit to Madrid I

found a new paper from

Sennelier. It’s not that I do

not have enough pastel

papers in stock. It is just

that I can’t resist buying

new ones to experiment

with. It is titled “l’Esprit du

Pastel” and it is described

as a grey felt paper with

crystal insert, 25 sheets,

130g. Wow, such a nice

name for paper with crys-

tal inserts! This must be

something special! It was

wrapped and I could not

touch and feel it in the

store. After rushing to the

hotel and opening it, I was

a bit disappointed since it

looks and feels like a regu-

lar Ingres paper, but on the

good side it has a glassine

paper between each

sheet. I use Sennelier and

Unison soft pastels

mostly and it looks

like they also like this

paper. I had 3 ver-

sions of background

and shadows and the

paper was happy to

accept new layers. No

fixative was used and

I did not brush off any

layer. As a conclusion

I can say I like this

paper and I recommend it.

You have an interesting thread on our PGE forum about Bill Creevy and his technique. Can you tell us for Scribbler what do you find to be interesting about his book and his technique? Was it useful for your painting of physalis?

I can sum it up in one

word: texture. I just love

the textures Bill achieves

in his paintings. They are

so lively and eye catching.

I’m reading and looking at

his book over and over. If I

miss inspiration for paint-

ing I can just browse this

book and I get the urge to

paint. After looking at his

works for a few months

now and trying some of

the techniques Bill is sug-

gesting, I guess some influ-

ence is already in place.

This painting of an apple in

a glass jar was my first

attempt to use so called

linear approach from that

book. It is a 20x20 cm on

black Canson MT paper.

Jabukauboki

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

P a g e 7

Street Painting

Tell us about

your street

painting, how

you got in-

volved?

To be precise I

was not in-

volved, I got

myself involved.

There was no

street painting

event any place close to

Zagreb which included

pavement painting. Proba-

bly the closest to Zagreb

was famous madonnari

festival in Grazie di Curta-

tone in the Province of

Mantua, Italy, but I needed

a place to practice first.

Therefore I decided to or-

ganize a street painting

festival together with my

wife just to get the chance

to paint myself. Zagreb is

lucky to have a big street

art festival called “Cest is

d’Best” that had 16 edi-

tions so far and includes all

kind of street art perform-

ances, jugglers, clowns,

many musicians, street

theaters, and a lot of danc-

ers. They had art installa-

tions and painting work-

shops but they were really

thrilled when I came with

the proposal to do the

street painting festival.

This year it will be the 5th

edition of the festival. If

you ever plan to visit Za-

greb, the beginning of

June is the time to come

and enjoy all these art

festivities.

For more info about Za-

greb Street Painting festi-

val please visit http://

pastelizacija.com

What do you find interest-

ing about street painting?

It looks demanding to

spend hours on your

knees and to cope with all

disturbances around you.

It is demanding, and some

people give up after trying

it once. First year we had

famous Croatian cartoonist

Nik Titanik and he told us

he came to make a quick

drawing within an hour

and he ended up spending

3-4 hours. He said this was

literally the hardest paint-

ing he had ever done. He

admitted to have had a lot

of fun but will not do it any

more. But at the same

time we do have as many

over 60 year old artists as

we do have teenagers, and

many people return to the

festival.

What do you love about

the street painting?

I love how you are forced

to improvise. I love to step

aside and listen comments

from people passing by.

But most of all I love to

meet new people who

share the same passion for

art and painting. Some of

the people I met are now

my good friends. I also

involve most of my friends

to come and help to organ-

ize this all day event.

Sax

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

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P a g e 8

Green Hug What advice can you offer

to pastel artists just start-

ing out with the medium?

Experiment! I believe the

soft pastels are the best

medium to experiment

with. There are so many

effects you can achieve

and the results are in most

cases immediate. But be-

ware it is addictive! You

have to buy new pastels,

new paper and all sort of

tools, all the time. Some-

how pastelists are always

missing this special shade

and that super paper

which takes hundreds of

pastel layers.

Have you seen any growth

in awareness of pastel in

Croatia in recent times? Is

pastel there recognized as

a serious fine art me-

dium?

If you judge by the galler-

ies and the art prices I

would say it still is not the

mainstream medium. I’d

like to change this and

would like to see a pastel

society, or any similar

group to work to change

that. I have a plan or

rather a dream to collect

pastel paintings by the

Croatian artists from the

past and make a book

about it, but this project is

on hold and will need to

wait for the time when my

son is grown.

You can follow Mario’s art

on his blog mariovuke-

lic.blogspot.com, and on

his blog about pastel art

and pastel artist pastel-

news.com

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

The Best of Get Dusty 2012! Proudly presenting the best of Get Dusty 2012. We have got together all the winning paintings, second places and special awards and put them together here for you to see. Members are encouraged to vote for their three favourites, follow the link for details. The closing date for votes is the 5th April 2013 and the overall winner (s) will be announced in the April Pastel Scribbler.

Admin news The PGE annual general meeting and Board elections are coming up. Nominations are invited for positions on the Board. Members please log in and see the thread in the General section of the forum for more details.

P a g e 9 T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

Here I will share my personal impressions of three interesting and instructive days I spent at a workshop in Paris in January together with our lovely friends Marie-France and Clea from PGE and some more attendees in the group directed by the excellent teacher, Nadine Roulleaux, So-ciété des Pastellistes de France.

As I live in Sweden I had to plan my equipment carefully due to travelling by air. The recommen-dation from the school was to bring several sheets of Canson-Mi-Teintes pastel paper in grey 50cmx65cm, a board of carton of the same size, as a backing sup-port for the easel, hard and soft pastel sticks, charcoal and kneaded eraser, bristle brush and some pastel pencils. When I booked my ticket I checked the luggage allowance carefully. I realised that there was no way of transporting these dimensions in my case. No panic, I rolled the paper and put it in two carton tubes, which were adjusted to the right size one with bottom and the other with lid. I put the same amount of glassine paper to pro-tect the pastels on the return journey. It worked perfectly with-out any damage whatsoever! For the backing I bought two pieces of 50x70cm foam board cut them in halves and taped two together again on one side in order to be able to fold it neatly in my suit-case. I put one half as an extra support across the taped joint when I rigged up the backing and all my sheets of paper on the

easel with clips. My box of pastels I carried as hand luggage with a note of contents on top in Eng-lish, French, and Swedish.

The school Ateliers d´Art is situ-ated in the suburb of Charenton le Pont and we worked from 10:00 to 12:30 and 14:00-17:30, 18th - 20th January, three intensive days.

The first morning Mme Roulleaux gave us a general introduction to the course, the planning of still life on the paper such as to indi-cate the horizontal and vertical lines and compare angles, lengths, dimensions etc. She showed and offered a very handy tool - a screw-nut hanging on a string to determine the vertical lines, which is so good to help place other surrounding objects in the right place on the paper com-pared to the main object. The next steps were to plan the still life on the paper and sketch it with charcoal, choose maximum thirteen pastel sticks, compare values, work dark to light and finally accents and highlights.

What I liked so much was the individual teaching method ac-cording to the students ability and requirements and the free-dom of choice of still life subjects, which the teacher had arranged so beautifully concerning colour and composition. You worked at your own pace, no stress at all.

My first painting was flowers. I managed to do the charcoal sketch which was acceptable without any alterations from the teacher and I could go to the next step, the under painting with broad and light pressured stokes using the pastel palette I had chosen. Some areas could be blended with fingers if needed and when I was finished Mme Roulleaux showed

me the next stage through paint-ing herself one of my flowers on my painting. What I appreciated so much was to see how she han-dled the pastel stick, the pressure applied to get the different nu-ances of the same stick and varie-gating with other colours too to build up the three dimensional look. She was rotating among the students all the time so skilfully and patiently, helping us with our paintings through painting and doing corrections herself on our work, explaining and giving fur-ther suggestions if needed. I liked Mme Roulleaux teaching method very much, without too much of theory. Painting, practicing, paint-ing. The details were not that important. The overall impression with shades and lights were the main thing. Two completed differ-ent paintings were the result of the day, which I was happy with.

The two following days were as encouraging as the first one with more new challenges on the still life settings and I am sure, the more you paint the more you learn especially when you have a good teacher. I was really so happy and enjoyed the course very much and it was also excit-ing, encouraging and pleasant to be together in real life with Clea and Marie-France. I was satisfied with all my five completed paint-ings and one half done, which I protected with glassine paper and rolled them up and put the whole lot into the cardboard tube for a safe journey back home.

Workshop experience in Paris with artist Nadine Roulleaux

Elisabeth Blass

P a g e 1 0 T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

You are the boss!

... it is not

the refer-

ence photo

which

makes the

decisions.

If you want

to train

yourself to make a photo into

your own painting, it

may be a good idea to

use reference photos

taken by other people.

It is an advantage to

not know the spot, as

then you will not be

tempted to paint real-

ity as you know it to be.

Your mind will not tell

you “but it looks just

like that”, precisely because it

doesn’t know how the place

looks, it only knows what a

photo shows.

This photo is taken by Don

Ketchek, and the scene is from

somewhere in the United

States of America. The photo

evoked memories from my

childhood, when my mother

and I used to ski in the woods

and on the frozen lakes where I

grew up. I decided to make a

painting from those ingredients

– the reference and the memo-

ries.

The photo is well shot, and

shows different planes and

objects which are coherent and

grouped. The bridge is a man-

made object which is interest-

ing. The water continues back

beyond the bridge, creating

depth and a sense of mys-

tery – what is around the

bend? The scene is filled

with light and there is little

shadow, which works well as

there are plenty of cool col-

ours in the sky and snow to

offset the warmer organic col-

ours.

There are a few problems to

solve. The mass of the distant

trees has a contour which fol-

lows the snowy bank under it,

creating a too regular “wavy”

shape like a banner (Picture 2,

marked in green). The shore-

line is certainly a straight hori-

zontal line, echoed by the

bridge (marked in red). The

whole composition of the

photo places all the darker

masses equidistant from the

top and bottom edges, giving a

sandwich effect of a dark band

one third wide, between two

light bands, each also a third

wide. (Picture 3.) This is the

natural way of taking a photo,

and we all have files full of

pictures similar to this. All this

can be changed by the artist.

(In the superimposed grid in

pictures 3 and 4 the green lines

show the divisions in thirds,

and the red line divisions in

halves, including the diago-

nals.)

There are many ways of solving

these issues. There is no one

right way, instead, there are

ways that work more or less

well. There is a definite need to

distribute the darks and lights

in a way which makes use of

the whole picture plane, but

exactly how can vary a lot.

Picture 4 shows how I hap-

pened to do it this time.

I brought the darks to

the top and bottom

edge, and jazzed up the

curves.

Picture 5 shows how I did some

work in the computer planning

where and how to draw the

lines and how to distribute the

five main value masses that

make up the basic flat abstract

structure.

Normally I do this by hand,

trying out different solutions,

until I find one that is pleasing.

As my drawing hand was in-

jured, I used the computer this

time to design what I call the

‘skeleton’, which is the struc-

ture that supports and makes

P a g e 1 1 T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

the picture hold together as a

whole as an abstract pattern. I

got rid of all straight lines with

the aim to let the lines ‘dance’

over the paper. Even the bridge

has a slight curve to it, with the

peak of the curve placed at a

distance of one third of the

length of the bridge.

I then drew the contours by

hand on the pastel paper, and

each value area has been given

a number to remind me which

tonal value goes where – that is

how important the values are

to me. (Picture 6.)

As this is a cool winter scene I

decided it needed a really hot

underpainting to infuse the

scene with light and to help the

cool colours sparkle. (Picture 7.)

The underpainting was checked

carefully with the help of a

value stick, and corrections

were added where needed. For

example, I had to

darken the reds of the

firs (picture 8).

When you want to

keep the structural

integrity, it is impor-

tant to constantly check if the

values are right, if the colours

are as you want them to be,

and if the lines and masses

keep their integrity. Make

changes as soon as you discover

the need for them, because if

something is wrong with the

underlying struc-

ture, no amount of

surface detail will

be able to hide that.

Problems did in-

deed pop up as I

painted, in spite of

about 4 hours of

serious preparatory

work designing the

painting. That is

fine, as we will learn more from

mistakes or oversights than

from an easy painting, and I

know I can’t think of absolutely

everything in advance.

The mass that represents the

firs to the left suddenly stood

out as having a too straight a

base, so I lowered the tree clos-

est to the edge (green arrow in

picture 9). It worked fine, but

then I discovered another prob-

lem which I had overlooked

when planning the composi-

tion. The two opposite banks

are too similar, and equal in

length (marked red). Also, there

were two similar shapes form-

ing hints of individual trees in

the background masses, which

both were placed as bookends

(marked blue). Together, these

problems created a too obvious

symmetry. One of the

orange tree-shapes

had to go, and I kept

the one to the right,

as it also works to

add higher contrast

for the small group of

firs by my chosen

area of interest. It is

important to con-

sciously search for

too symmetrical and identical

repetitions of shapes, as our

brains will tend to make them

and guide our hands uncon-

sciously. Deal with problems as

soon as you discover them, that

saves you a lot of trouble later

in the process of painting.

I chose the solution to take out

a bite out of the left bank, cre-

ating a shadowed hollow there,

which only left a small part of it

in direct light (picture 10).

After that, all that was needed

was to add the details and at-

tend to the edges. I brought

some of the warm oranges

down into the snow as clumps

of reeds, and lifted up some of

the cool snow-colours into the

trees, in order to create a

greater unity in the painting. I

kept the snow in the dark trees

to a minimum, to avoid break-

ing up the masses, and decided

to make the tree in the area of

interest to serve as a bridge

between the snow mass and

the sky mass by giving it the

most liberal dose of snow.

Creative Bubbles news, December 2012 and January 2013

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terised version of the finished

painting (picture 12) is a way to

compare the intent with the re-

sult. They do correspond well

enough for me to say “mission

accomplished”.

Now it was time for a final check –

had the masses kept their integrity,

was the structure still sound? The

value plan (picture 11) and the pos-

The finished painting

Winter Passage

“Watch out”: what a joyous painting:

the child on the saucer sled looks so

happy!

“Another way of travelling”: what a

colorful one! All those people follow-

ing the movement of the bus on the

dangerous road, looking happy too

though!

What do those two sensitive paintings

have in common? Elisabeth Blass

from Sweden painted both, and so

was the winner of both the December

and January Creative Bubbles.

And what else?...movement, color,

expression, in both of them the

painter shows us how to share special

or ordinary moments of life: merci

Elisabeth!

The February challenge is “Greens,

you said Greens!” Log in and enter

yours in the Competitions section of

the Forum, closing date 28th February.

T h e P a s t e l S c r i b b l e r

What’s Happening in the PGE Forum?– Join in the debate

and get involved!

We have a new bi-monthly chal-lenge/workshop called Focus. We're starting this regular thread by focus-ing on a special limited palette. Doro-theé Röhler is hosting the thread. There are reference photos posted there to work from if you want. Come and join us in the Atelier!

Show your best work of 2012 and see that of other members - in the Atelier.

There is a new Business and Marketing forum. Ask questions or offer answers there.

Talk about what's going on in your life in Small Talk chat with other like-minded artists- General forum

Share your master-piece and get feed-back from other art-ists– great for learn-ing!

We hope you enjoyed the Pastel Guild of Europe newsletter

We are group of pastel artists around Europe who share the same vision of connection and friendships between artists across Europe, with the common goal to inform, enjoy and delight in the beautiful artist's medium of soft pastels, and to be a support and resource for artists and groups of artists.

If you share same goals, you are invited to join our growing community.

www.pastelguild.com

The Pastel Guild of Europe was founded in May 2009 when pastel artists from all over Europe perceived a need for a supportive organization, as pastellists are still rather few and scattered over many countries. To-gether we can educate artists and the gen-eral public, promote, and enjoy the versatile and permanent pastel medium, thus taking an active part in bringing the renaissance of pastel painting to Europe. Being a young society covering many coun-tries, our activities are internet based, and we will grow to have the capacity of arrang-ing exhibitions and workshops where mem-bers meet in person. At the present, we of-fer a monthly online challenge ‘Get Dusty’, special challenges, and the monthly newslet-ter The Pastel Scribbler.

Debate the tricky business of sharpen-ing pastel pencils without pulling your hair out!

Learn tips in the popular Animal painting thread

Copyright: The Pastel Scribbler, and/or the authors/artists/photographers. Please contact the Pastel Scribbler for permission.

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