Finding Your Style In Pastel - Jean Hirons

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Résumé :
As artists, we have choices. There are very few rules that apply across the board. We can create highly realistic paintings, or perhaps more expressive paintings, or paintings that have very little basis in reality, including those that are totally nonrepresentational. We can record color as we see it or as we'd like it to be. As pastel artists, we have even more choices. We can use a wide variety of pastels, strokes, surfaces, and techniques to create many different looks. The choices we make form the framework of our individual style, our signature as artists. Any subscriber to The Pastel Journal realizes how varied the medium of pastel can be. For the experienced artist, these articles are stimulating, offering possible ways to experiment with alternative approaches. For the beginner, the panoply of choices can be overwhelming. Painting is primarily an intuitive process. But intuition is gained through study and experience. Part of my impetus in writing this book has been to create a more structured approach to help those fairly new to the medium understand its many possibilities. The book is aimed at all levels of pastel artists. Beginners will find a wealth of helpful information and intermediate artists will gain insight into how to take their work to another level and develop a style. Many advanced artists teach pastel...

Biographie:
JEAN HIRONS is an avid painter and teacher of pastel. She has worked in the medium since 1994 and has been teaching since 2004. From 2005-2012, Hirons taught at Montgomery College, Rockville, MD, where she resides. She now provides classes and workshops in various locations in the Mid-Atlantic states and in New England. She is a signature member of the Pastel Society of America, Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod, and the Maryland Pastel Society, of which she was president from 2007-2009. The Pastel Journal featured her work in June 2011, in an article in which she was dubbed the Architect of Color. Hirons retired from the Library of Congress in 2003, after thirty years of librarianship in which her primary achievements related to documentation and training. She won several of the highest awards granted by the American Library Association. Her pastel paintings have also won many awards and can be seen at: www.jeanhirons.com....

Sommaire:
the organization of ideas and the exercises included should be of assistance. I offer a variety of suggested approaches and sometimes make up terminology to describe my experiences with the medium. The instructions in the book are based on my preferences and the guidance that I offer my students. The diversity of styles and techniques evident in the paintings of contributing artists should make it clear, however, that there are many ways to successfully work in pastel....