The Scribbler

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Excerpt from The Scribbler article.

The article, Authenticity & Your Art, is one I hope you'll save and read at your leisure.  Find out about your authority as an artist.  Thanks to the Pastel Guild of Europe for publishing this.

"Authority is as uncommon now as it ever was," Casey Klahn.

Article at The Scribbler.


I am also pleased to receive two reviews and a short biographical statement written by my friend, author, and fellow at-home-daddy, Terry Gildow.  I will show you those at a later time.


Further reading on the topic of the artist's authenticity, The Artist's Ethos.

Skyline River Trees

Skyline River Trees

Small

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Denver in May!

Denver Workshop Details:

See Differently. Authenticity & Your Art,

by Casey Klahn.

Location: Studio of Joan Fullerton, 4976 Carefree Trail, Parker, CO 80134

Date: May 19^th & 20^th  

Cost: $240

Class Size: 12

Contact me by e-mail


This workshop has generated much interest.  There are spaces available, but they will fill up soon.

Impressionists at the MAC

Edgar Degas 

figurine, bronze posthumous cast

The Spokane MAC has an Impressionists exhibit, and I finally felt well enough to go today.  Good to be well, again.  Saw Renoir, Pissaro and Degas.  Also Inness.

Full report still to come.

So Long, Word Verif#@ation

I took down my word verification.  The only spam I get is from some guy named kevin or kevin21.  He is very dedicated to his spamming here, and he takes the time and effort to fill in my WV.  And, I dump him straight into the spam file every time.


All others, please feel free to comment here, free of the now too odious word verification process.


Poppy Brew provided this nice graphic.

Vlog Series

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Two entries in the educational series at Pastel Workshop (blog) are illustrated with  my videos. Those are:  Elements & Dynamics of Design, which illustrates the elements of art using sample paintings, and Value Scale Simplicity, which takes a gray scale approach to simplifying and unifying your work.  The subject of simple value compositions will be expanded upon in the next post at the Pastel Workshop blog.


The whole series is presented an element at a time.  I am almost through with the basic elements, and will be ticking off the dynamics of design next.


This series of lessons is provided as prep work for my workshop students.  When I critique or teach, these lessons provide prerequisite knowledge of art terms so we can more quickly get to the task of making new art. 

The Simple View of the Value Scale - Vlog

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News Set - New Sets

New sets  -  cool grays, warm grays and blue-grays.

These new home-made pastels are still wet.  It takes several days to dry them, and I am eager to get them into my new Dakota Travel Box.  I compared the Judson's one (pictured above) with the Dakota ones, and bought the Judson brand.  I think I like it better, but I needed more safe travel storage, and so I also purchased a Dakota Box.  I will let you know eventually which of these two similar boxes I like best.

I still owe you a report on my beautiful new Roche Pastels.  So far, so great!  I have been quite under the weather for the past couple weeks, and my studio painting sessions have suffered.  I will be better soon, and will bring you a new picture and a review.

Breaking News.

The dates for my upcoming workshops have been set.  Denver is May 19th & 20th.  Contact me to sign up for this one.


Cambridge, Ontario is June 2nd & 3rd.
Contact Edward at Pastel Studios, Canada.

I am gathering interest for future dates in:

Berlin, Germany

Portland, OR

Boston, MA

Happy Valentine's Day

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ACME Heart Maker.

Post at Pastel Workshop, in Which I Unpack a Pastel Landscape and Subject it to Formal Analysis

Want a formal critique of this pastel?  See it here.

facebook 

Workshop Basics

Need an introduction to art basics or just a refresher ?  For the benefit of my workshop students, I am creating some videos and posts at my blog, Pastel Workshop.  When I do critiques, these are the formal elements of art that are referenced.  


Video.
Line.
Shape.

More to come.

Up To The Minute

In the interests of keeping you up-to-the-minute, here is a photo journal of my recent studio works.

Upland Air

6.3" x 6.75"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

informal iPhone record

Ghost Riders

6.75" x 9.75"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

informal iPhone record

These pastels make use of my new Roche sticks.

Snow Day

Snow Day

 6x9, Pastel.

informal record w iPhone

Casey Klahn

This is my farm in eastern Washington.  We no longer grow Barley here, but old terms die hard.  This year, like most of the US, we had very little snow.  I did capture this one day, though.

Jackson Pollock Would Be 100 Today

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Today, of all days, you can give yourself permission to go out to the studio and make a huge mess, step in it, and basically cut loose!


Jackson Pollock was born 100 years ago today in Cody, Wyoming, to Presbyterian Irish and Scotch-Irish farmers.  He changed the world.


Telegraph Article on the centenary of Pollock's birth.


What follows is my research post on Jackson Pollock, which has been beviraled by Google and utilized by thousands of university students as a starting point for their studies.

The Colorist

About The Colorist blog.

Galaxy, 1947Jackson Pollock

This post was originally published in 2007. It gets enough attention that I brought it up to date.

See also The Jackson Pollock Researcher for the comprehensive and current links on Jackson Pollock.

Originality was the hallmark of Jackson Pollock's art. He found a way to both connect with, and yet break free of whatever else had been happening with art. It's a little hard to appreciate the originality of Pollock from our high horse of retrospection. I liken it to some of my experiences with rock climbing. Sure, a particular rock climb will have a difficulty rating and a status as severe or hard, but when you go to climb it, you feel that it isn't as hard as described. Well, put yourself in the sticky shoes of the very first ascensionist. What was the experience like for him?

So, imagine the first "pure" abstraction. How does one completely eliminate the subject from a painting? The Abstract Expressionists often likened abstract painting to getting "in touch" with your inner child, because children draw and paint with freedom and innocence. I argued with that comparison until I had my own children picking up pencils and crayons. Now, I completely believe in the childlike aspects of abstract visual expression. Now, I just have to work out my objections to the "primitive man" comparisons to painting abstraction.

My own experience with abstraction took place when I took a workshop from Diane Townsend, who happens to be a great abstractionist with ties to New York and my hero Wolf Kahn.

How do you begin painting abstractly? Townsend unlocked that door for me, and before noon on the first day I was having a great time painting "nothing". I hope to continue my exploration of abstraction in the near future. It actually can be one of the hardest styles to paint in and make anything really good. My abstracts can be seen here and here.

Let's follow some link paths for Jackson Pollock.




Steven Naifeh and Greg Smith have written a Pulitzer prize winning biography titled: Jackson Pollock, An American Saga. I have some serious misgivings about it's historicity, but suffice it to say that it seems to be the "go to" book now for looking at his life. Ed Harris brings it to our attention in his comments about his movie about the keen artist.

Harris also thinks Pollock may have been manic-depressive. Of course, my first inclination would be to look up the paperwork on his 4-F status, just in case that might reveal something about a diagnosis of this or something similar. I guess he also saw therapists, and the records from that probably reveal something, too. Shades of van Gogh.

Pollock's Studio Floor

Don't miss the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton (Long Island). This small property with rustic facilities was purchased by Pollock and Krasner with help from Peggy Guggenheim, who was Pollock's "super-patron". It was here that Pollock began his drip paintings, and you may visit this museum and walk on the floor where his drips are preserved. Could these be considered accidents?

I recommend the Pollock bio written by the director of the P-K House, Helen Harrison.

There is a Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which I think is a very classy move by the late Lee Krasner, who was left as a widow by her drunken and cheating genius-artist husband. Trying to figure out what made Krasner's relationship with Pollock tick is an exercise in head-trips that some may enjoy. We'll look at the wonderful Krasner a little later in our Abstract Expressionist study this month.

The National Gallery of Art in DC has a good site about the old boy. A quick look at his process is seen in this GIF - Video. Here's a Quicktime featurette of a Hans Namuth film of the Camel-smoking curmudgeon at his task of working a horizontal canvas.

I have to limit the scope of JP references found at the Museum of Modern Art, since they are numerous. Man, this stuff is knee-deep. How does one have an "itinerant childhood"? Uh, never mind the MoMA for now...

Of course, my favorite site for Jackson Pollock is the fun and interactive "Create Your Own" Jackson Pollock by Milos Manetas. It's an ingenious flash page where you drip "paint" on your CRT screen. Of course, you don't control the color - those come as accidents. My only advice is cut loose, don't stay inside the frame, and don't stop too soon!

Links referenced above:
http://www.amazon.com/Jackson-Pollock-American-Steven-Naifeh/dp/0913391190
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/pkhouse.nsf
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/pkhouse.nsf/pages/pollock
http://www.pkf.org/
http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/index.htm
http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

Henri Roche Pastels

 A little box has arrived from Paris, France.

 12 Half Sticks Discovery Set plus 3 Sticks.

My report is forthcoming.  I'll be in the studio till then.

A Little Box Has Arrived

The Postmaster says she has a box for me to pick up.  It's from Paris, France!


La Marseillaise.


I will definitely have something exciting to blog about tomorrow...


Photo: 
www.all-free-photos.com. 

Room at the Workshop for Two More

See Differently. Authenticity & Your Art.

PSA member artist and author of The Colorist blog, Casey Klahn, will be teaching his workshop in Morristown, NJ, March 17th & 18th, 2012. See Differently. Authenticity & Your Art. 

Contact ArtSpace Studio, Julie Gridinsky Friedman, to secure one of the 2 spaces remaining. A waiting list will be started for this workshop when it fills. Also, the workshop on the 15th & 16th is full. Contact Julie to be added to a wait list.

Rivers Abstract Well, Don't You Think?

A Riverside

6" x 4"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

iPhone Photo

This pastel painting started out as one thing, and then I turned it upside down to check the composition.  It looked better, so I kept it that way.

Winter Scenery

Winter

Interior Sketch

l 

Barn Interior Color Sketch

7" x 6"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

 SOLD

Just thinking out loud.  In color.