Workshop Review - Bainbridge Island

 Ed Center at Bloedel Reserve

Pierre Ouimet and Karen Sprague were two of thirteen students at the See Differently workshop.

Thirteen artists endeavored to provide something new to the world at my See Differently workshop, by making pictures authentically their own.  Bainbridge Island's Bloedel Reserve provided us with great subject matter (imagine me in the tall trees).

The Winslow Art Center hosted this event, and we anticipate more in the near future.  I want to follow-up with a workshop on blogging, and another on colorist methods.  Those will be new adventures!

This Exhibition is Still Up Through This Month

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It ends August 29th.
Clearstory Gallery, Spokane.

There's Another?

Did you know I have another blog?  Pastel Workshop.

Exhibiting in NYC

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Enduring Brilliance!

September 4 - September 28, 2012

Pastel Society of America at 40

Pastels Only Juried Exhibition

My original pastel, Forest Pond, will be on display at the exhibit.

PSA Link.

The Cascades

Cascades

6" x 8"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

DPW/Daily Paintworks Auction/ Bid Now

Tahiti Was Good For Gauguin

The Moment of Truth (I), 1892

o/c, 54.5 cm x 31 cm

Paul Gauguin

Cincinnati Art Museum

I wish I was born in the nineteenth century.  Maybe I'd have taken a long Tahitian retreat, like Gauguin, or Matisse. Actor Marlon Brando figured the same.

a thing of the mind

"Pittura est cousa mentale"

Painting is a thing of the mind.

Leonardo da Vinci

after da Vinci

@14x12"

Conte & White Chalk

Casey Klahn

Pastel Field at DPW

 Pastel Field 

11.25" x 16" 

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn
$1275

Daily Paintworks/DPW

Hopper Houses Today

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Cape Cod Afternoon,1936 
Oil on canvas, 34 x 50 inches
Edward Hopper 
Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Image form ibiblio.



Hopper Houses Today

h/t Gerard Vanderleun

WFMIT?

What Fresh Mess Is This?

Casey Klahn

Just kidding.  I'm tentatively happy with my first oil start.  More tubes are on order from Seattle, so I can actually color this baby in.

So many questions I have.  Will I leave the impasto textures, or will they just get in the way of the varnish? Will I trench-in a new power line, or fish around for the old one?

Drywall plans are on the drawing board.  One step at a time.

Seattle Area Workshop - Bloedel Reserve is the Most Beautiful Venue on the Planet!

Can you tell I'm excited?

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Winslow Art Center.

The Barn Studio Project

The idea to use the barn for a studio has been going around in my head for some time.  I was warned about the downsides, and there are many.  But, the space is big, and well ventilated for when I want to try my hand at large oils.  We'll see how things turn out as I use this for a temporary oil painting studio, at least while the weather is good!

Green Grows the Ground

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Green Ground

3.5" x 4.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

This new work is being auctioned at the Daily Paintworks!

Violet Horizon at Daily Paintworks

Violet Horizon

3.5" x 5.25"

Pastel

Casey Klahn


Bid

Summer Painting Outdoors

This is the informal iPh photo

Forest Interior 3

@6x10.8" 

Pastel

Casey Klahn

en plein air

Pastel-Box Famous

Edgar Degas

Georgia O'Keeffe

Degas' box picture from La Maison du Pastel website.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s pastels from Pilgrimage (Annie Leibovitz, 2011).

Palettes as History

Vincent van Gogh

Paul Gauguin

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/lucydavies/100007607/why-preserve-van-goghs-palette/

Modigliani - Love, Nonsense & Life

Modigliani, not looking well, 1919.

Amedeo Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) has been the subject of a couple of feature movies.  Mostly, they cover his love life, which lacked no drama.  I take that back - the more recent flick is also very much about the artistic process.  Critics and the public hate it, but I loved it.  The metaphor of his grand premier compared to a bloody mugging in the snow is rich, and I liked the way he consulted his boyhood self from time to time.  


Watching the 1958 film, Les Amants de Montparnasse, in French, is a nonsensical treat for me, since I don't understand the language.  


Happy Birthday, Modi.  


Here is a You Tube of his paintings streamed to some music with an Italian title about love's consequences.  I like to watch these with the digital projector on the big screen.  Maybe some of his great style and visual grace will rub off on me.

Ahem. I Painted in This Guy's Studio, Once. Just Sayin...

My friend, oil painter and pastelist Ken Elliott, is not shy about putting down color.  Watch this fine artist create a colorist landscape, in its entirety, on video.  

For The Color blog.

Yellows Across the Lake

oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

Ken Elliott

Hopper, with Mood Music

The work of the American artist Edward Hopper is so moody and evocative, that more than a few amateur videographers have tried to distill his images with a track.  Which one of the following works best for you?

Yes, a sublime waste of time.  But, you get to soak up some great Hopper while doing it.

Edward Hopper to Claude Debussy

or Benny Goodman

(and Edward Hirsch)

try Eric Satie

and finally, Mr. Tom Waits at Closing Time.

Video attributions embedded in videos.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967).

Hopper was so tied into his subjects that when he outlived them, his output died, too.  Don't be sad about that - stand up and cheer for what he gave us when he did.

Artchive/Hopper  

News

High Branches

 High Branches

@10" x 8"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

I added that edge in Photoshop. Is that fair? I feel that presentation is a good thing, especially with works on paper.  In real life, though, this work would be framed with a mat.

In The Summertime

 High Branches

@8" x 10"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

Excuse me for having nice weather, while I know many of you are suffering under extreme heat.  I count my blessings. 


I made an extra effort to work on my plein air at the lake this year.  


I'll try to photograph the handful of pastels I completed over the holiday, and post them here, soon.  Happy vacations, everyone.


Bob Dylan has something to say about summertime, too.

Go To Market

You Must Find Your Market.

Sometimes you have to push yourself to market in a cart, so strong is the inertia defending the marketplace from you. I find this especially true in the summer, when family, chores, and focus on art-making occupy my time.


Here are some great links for art marketing to get you revved-up.


What Are You Really Selling?, Cindy Haase.
Daily Paintworks, Carol Marine.
Art Biz Blog, Alyson Stanfield.
Marketing Mondays, Joanne Mattera.
The Painter's Keys, Robert Genn.

Photo attribution lost, sorry.

Palettes

Arthur Buxton

"Colour Trend Visualisation, 

each chart represents an individual painting with the five most prominent colours shown proportionally."

Degas, Matisse, Gauguin.

The limit of this is that all color is relative, but the idea is a knockout.  Love it!

Cool Blogs You Haven't Seen

Maybe you have seen them.  But for those who have not, they are recommended.

The Limited Palette Workshop, by H. Edward Brooks.
Atelier LaRose, by Steven LaRose.  Formerly Fish or Cut Bait.
pastelnews at Tumblr, by Mario Vuklic.
Buckwheat.  A father & son bluegrass duo.  Jetta Smith.
For the Color, by Ken Elliott.
Sarah Peroutka Studios, by  Sarah Peroutka.

Two Artists

Have a look at these two artists.


Forrest Moses
Raimonds Staprans

Pinterest

art

pastels

art vids

casey klahn art

master artists

totem

books

Late Sanguine

Late Sanguine

8.25" x 18"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

See this at Arbor Crest Thursday night.

Framing Canola

Informal Record

Canola Yellow

7.5" x 9.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Fathers and History

Link
My Grandfather, Max Klahn, is the young boy pictured @ the top right. See a story about him below. Next to him at his left are Henry, my Great Grandfather and Charlotte, my Great Grandmother. Location: Quillayute Prairie, WA. Date: 1895. This remote place is about the rainiest spot in the US, and less than 5 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. And we love it there.

Father's Day is a time that I choose to remember my fore-bearers.  

Grandpa Max and Grandma Anna homesteaded in the land that time forgot, the Olympic Peninsula.  Think Twilight, only without the amenities.  By no amenities, I mean no electricity.  Did I mention no road, either?  Max hiked the Olympic beach to get to work during the Great Depression, which was a hundred miles plus a little.  The Indians rafted him across the rivers he couldn't ford.  He worked in the logging and port towns of Hoquiam and Aberdeen.

Max and Anna had 13 children, and the seven brothers all went off to war.  My father, Kenneth K. Klahn, saw heavy combat in Italy, as a member of the famous Tenth Mountain Division, US Army.  

Together with my maternal grandfather, my father, brother and I worked in the woods when I was four years old.  Did I say I worked?  Of course, I played.

Today, we honor my father-in-law who passed away Thursday.  He was a wheat farmer, and a WW II veteran.  He could outwork five oversized men half his age, and feed the world while he was at it.  You cannot replace him, which is a fact.

Father's Day is Sunday.  A local point of pride is the fact that Father's Day was invented in 1910, in Spokane, WA,  by Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd.  It is good to remember our fathers.

Matisse on Color

1953

I just ordered a book of essays by and about Henri Matisse.  This quote is from the essay, The Role and Modalities of Color, 1945.

Tip-Toe This Line

This critique of my work offers some insight into the lines I try to straddle.

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Keep your ear to the ground and your heart in a safe place, you never know when you'll find yourself wandering...

                                      

   Coming into form, Casey Klahn's art strives to join the abstract with the ingenuity of landscape detail. You could say he tip-toes this line with ease, when in reality a line remains to be seen. The human eye is trained to view things which manifest in our hearts.

   The overall feel (of Klahn's art) refuses to be labeled with simple adjectives, rather wishes to be defined by thought patterns and feelings adapted into emotion. Keep your ear to the ground and your heart in a safe place, you never know when you'll find yourself wandering...

   This is a place where man has seldom come. The forest's age is conveyed with dynamic precision. The balance...would have to be its best quality. With just the right amount of color where it needs to be, you really get a sense of how much control the artist has with the instruments at his disposal.


   When it comes down to it, Casey Klahn's artwork has a mood all its own. The notion to single out a central theme or idea works against him in many cases, requiring his viewers to dig deep within themselves to try and identify a hidden meaning in many of his works.

   The human mind is only as open and deep as we make it, and Casey thrives on exploiting those pits which open in the deepest and darkest corners. This is what makes him such a proliferate artist and will continue to profile him for years to come.

Terry Gildow

There is a reception Friday, 5-9 PM at the Life Center Clearstory Gallery.  Color & Expression Now. (509)327-4422  

1202 N. Government Way, Spokane WA 99224.

Reception Friday Night

Clearstory Gallery

Spokane, WA

Friday, June 8th. 5-9PM

Color & Expression Now

Color & Expression Now at The Clearstory Gallery, Spokane

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Clearstory Gallery, Spokane. June 8th.

Absalom Shade & Galt in the Rain

The name Absalom Shade sounds like a character Johnny Depp might play in a movie, but he was actually a city father in southern Ontario.  The eighteenth-century founder of Shade's Mill would be proud of this singularly beautiful little hamlet today.  Part of Cambridge, and now called Galt, it is also the location where I taught my workshop this past weekend.  My full report will follow soon.

Galt in the Rain

8" x 10"

Pastel

Casey Klahn 

The Grand River in one-time Shade's Mill.

Pastel Studio, Canada

Galt

Absalom Shade

Cambridge, Ontario

At The Pastel Studio of Canada

Large workshop space!

I am pleased and proud to be teaching at Canada's exclusive purveyor of high-end pastel materials, The Pastel Studio of Canada, in Cambridge, ON.  You will find Diane Townsend and Roche open stocks and sets, just to mention two of the brands carried.

Yesterday I set up the space for my workshop, and took a short break to walk around beautiful, old Cambridge and Galt, with its Scottish stone-mason built structures and the river.  Of course it rained like mad, and yet I took an old fold of paper and a pencil and did up some proper sketches as references to paint.  Back in the studio, with the proprietor Edward, I created a pastel scene of Galt in the Rain.

Galt in the Rain

@8" x 10"

Pastel on Lava Grit, Mounted

Casey Klahn