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Lorenzo Chavez PSA

Parker, CO

My wife shot this photo of me working on a pastel of the Ranchos De Taos Church in Taos, New Mexico. It was done on Canson Mi-Teintes paper.

If pastel artists want to see free demos of my pastel process, they can access my demos on my website, under videos.

These are images of my studio drawing board, 24" x 36." I like to write inspiring thoughts and quotes of painting advice from the painting masters of the past and today. I like to glance at them as I am painting pastels for a higher thought vibration.

This photo shows my Winter Creek pastel on the drawing board and my plein air paintings that inspired the idea.

The bookcase in the photo is near my oil painting setup, with recent work framed and ready to ship to galleries and exhibitions. The bookcase holds many plein air sketches, and the wooden antique map cabinet contains several pastel paintings, laying flat.

This is my outdoor pastel painting box. My go-to pastels are Rembrandts, Girault, and Nu Pastels. I draw with a conté crayon in a Bistre color to start my work. I love working mostly on Canson Moonstone pastel paper, on the smooth side. It is a good idea to arrange your pastels in color groups and value groups, to help find the color and value more easily.

My plein air set up at Mesa Verde National Park Colorado.

Here are three landscape paintings; The first one is a closeup of the finished pastel I am working on in the first photo of this Eblast. The second image is the final version of the pastel Winter Creek, that is in process, depicted in the second photo in this Eblast. Lastly, the bottom painting demonstrates my process of completing a conté drawing, before layering in pastel color.

The final photo is me painting in an arroyo in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area using my pastel outdoor painting box. I am painting on a piece of Canson Moonstone paper that has been taped to a small Masonite board. You can see my thumbnail marker study in the sketchbook.

Carol Strock Wasson PSA-MP

Union City, IN

My studio is housed in an old building, built in 1960. I purchased it several years ago, and, over time, it has become a space shaped by trial, error, and the steady rhythm of my daily work. The building has two large rooms, about 800 square feet each, and there are several smaller rooms that are used for storage, an office, and framing. One large room is devoted to painting, teaching and workshops; the other functions as a gallery, where I hang and show my work.

The working side is always alive with activity. Several easels and tables are set up, and I usually have multiple paintings in progress at once. The tables and easels are on wheels, so I can shift the space quickly, depending on what I am working on or what I am teaching that day.

My pastels are organized in a long, homemade box, two feet by eight feet, sorted strictly by values: very light, light, medium, dark, and very dark. That is how I see color, and having them arranged this way keeps me grounded in value structure, before anything else.

The handprints on the floor are those of my grandchildren. I often have studio days with them. We use acrylic paint, rolled onto a cookie sheet, to create the hand prints.

In the back room, I keep my frames, tools and equipment for framing. Another small side room stores older framed paintings on wooden shelves. We had it built, with each piece separated by cardboard, to keep the frames protected.

I also have a printing press in the back room of my studio. I love printing and making monotypes.

The gallery side of the building is where I host open houses, sales, and gatherings of those who follow my work. It is a quieter space, meant for looking, reflecting and sharing finished pieces. I had the walls built to be movable, so I can rearrange the area and keep it feeling fresh.

Here are other special corners of my studio which are for books, color swatches and awards.

Not shown in the photos, but very much a part of my routine, is my stationary bike, and an air filter that keeps the dust under control.

This studio has grown with me. It is practical, flexible and deeply personal; a place where I paint, teach, store equipment and keep pushing my work forward.

Jim Dine is an American artist and poet and he’s known for his contributions to the formation of both Performance Art and Pop Art. His career took off during the 1960s, but before that Dine and his then-wife Nancy lived in a small apartment (that doubled up as the artist’s studio) in Yorkville, Manhattan. They moved there in 1959, the same year their first son, Jeremiah, was born. Dine was teaching in the city while painting on the side. This image, taken in 1960, sees the artist in his cluttered studio with various artworks hanging up and his son on his shoulders. A couple of years later, gallerist Martha Jackson and several other New York art aficionados bought and exhibited his paintings, allowing Dine to quit teaching and go full-time with his art.