Pura Vida at Casa Zen

Casa Zen, St. Teresa, Costa Rica. This piece is almost square, 19" X 19.5", soft pastel. 

Started in Nov. 2023 and finished in January 2024

INSPIRATION: While on a trip to Costa Rica several years ago, we stayed at Casa Zen, in ST. Teresa. This place was almost right on the beach, and it offered yoga classes daily. When I went up to the 2nd floor to see the yoga studio, this is the scene that met me. Lot of light, in the direction of the beach, and this lovely patterning created by nature in the form of Palm fronds. 

Here I am, about to begin my demonstration at Gallery 203 in Old Montreal, at the opening weekend of Pixel Pastel, a national pastel show, last November. 

I decided to work on this piece for my demonstration, because I have been known as a soft pastel instructor for some time, working in straight on impressionism. I do love that method, but had been wanting to delve into new creative pursuits. So, about 3 or 4 years ago, I started experimenting with new methods that I thought were more in keeping with my true sense of creativity and curiosity. Since then, I've been painting a lot of things with pattern, a ton of colour, and layers of subject matter. I'm abandonning old techniques and not knowing exactly what will happen next. It's making the work so exciting to create. 

Here, you can still see the underpainting showing through. I wanted the underpainting to be somewhat electric and tropical. I intended on letting the undeprainting show through in some places, as the scene is backlit with full on sunshine. However, I was also aware of the patterning of nature, in terms of the palm leaves, and also wanted to express the repeat nature of the long leaves, the fullness and richness of them, and their colours. So it's a give and take of rich coloured leaves and the light behind, that is illuminating. 

 

Here I am with Myles Johnson, president of the Pastel Society of Eastern Canada (and whom I found out grew up in the Ottawa area!) One thing about my new direction in executing paintings, is it is more time consuming, and perhaps not a good choice for a time restrainted demonstration. I only got so far on the painting, and have been working on it off and on ever since at home. Myles and everyone at PSEC were marvellous. The space was full of light and the work exhibited was top-notch. 

At this paint, lots left to do. Working hard to soft, it's time to get out the softies and start really intensifying and enriching the established colours. I am not working dark to light, but rather palm leaves, then railing, back and forth.

Covering up more of the underpainting, you can see the palms slowly gain more presence.

At this point, I'm starting to add in other colours on the palms, of the same value, like purples and reds. 

Not happy with the light on the deck surface, I corrected my drawing there, putting in more detail, more accuracy. Also considering a consistent sense of light, on the railings, edge of floor, and an illuminated intense sense of the stained glass discs. 

I wanted to lighten the value of the floor, and have the darker area vary in value, left to right., adding to a consistent sense of light in the whole piece.

My goal as an artist these days is to create work that has a unique voice, but also work in which I love every step of the process. I cna saythat between the Peacocks series, Avalon, and Mother, and now this piece, I am well on my way of achieving that goal. 

This piece is framed white a light neutral matt and a ligth coloured wood frame, available for $899.00. If you are interested in this piece, please contact me at marg.ferraro@gmail.com

 

"Mother" 25" X 34" framed, pastel

This original pastel painting will be on exhibit at the Pastel Artists of Canada National Exhibition, being held at the Neilsen Park Creative Center, in Etobicoke, opening May 30-June 17nth, 2023

What does this Title mean?

In April of 2022, I was visiting my daughter, who lives in London England. It's her determination to show me a very good time whenever I visit. On this day, we were visiting an outdoor market near her house. This table, full to the brim with the effort of handmade bowls was a lot to take in, and believe me, I left SO MUCH out! 

Yes, I was taken by the abundance of these unique beauty bowls, each one different and created by hand, which lead me to think of a Buddhist meditation called "mother of us all". It begins with the contemplation of how manymothers we have had throughout history, given re-incarnation. You don't have to believe in re-incarnation to contemplate this philosophy. We think of the effort of a mother, all the kindness shown to countless beings. We think of kindness in general and the happiness generated through kindness. One way of seeing the infiniteness of kindness is to look at any inanimate object. I see a box of breakfast cereal in my view from where I am writing this. But it could be a loaf of bread, a chair, anything. We think of the origin of the material for this object, and how a farner had to grow acrops with great care and watering in order to reap the crop.  Then, the crop has to be collected and taken to a refining station where the crop is refined into something edible. Every step of the way, more people are involved in this collaborate effort. The the crop goes to a plant where it is transformed into cereal. There are graphic artists who design the box it goes into, marketing people who decide how and where it si to be sold, salespeople going dorr to door,a nd it isn't even on the shelf yet! By analyzing anything in out existence, you can see that we are all dependent on the kindness and efforts of others to creat coutless useful things we need to live. 

As fas as these bowls go, they are not only serviceable and beautiful, but one could argue of the person who extracts the clay from the ground, the many people it takes to create the many glazes represented, as well as the great effort to create something unique and beautiful in every single piece.  Like flowers, no two are alike, they are all a miracle, totally unique.

The image of so many handmade and handpainted bowls suggest the abundance we all live by, whether or not we are concious of it.   

My underpainting was a melange of a warm brick red and a cool green. Over top of that, I drew my bowls in charcoal. At this point, I'd just like to point out, I do not trace, nor have I ever traced my images, ever. I have a love of drawing, and have great satisfaction from knowing I can draw this, freehand. I also feel that your drawing, each mark you make is a direct reflection of each person and their character, your soul.  When you trace a projected image, you refelct a technical tool, not you. It was quite a challenge to draw this, as many of the bowls were on a pedestal, and they were all on slightly different slants. Quite the challenge!

 

Because I'm not after hyper-realism, I on-purpose made concious decisions about how much detail would go into each bowl. The bowls were all hand painted, each one was different, and they were very elaborate. If I included the same amount of detail that was in the photo, I would never have been able to finish this piece. 

What really slowed down the process, was taking the time to stand back, and consider having a similar amount of detail in each bowl. A lot of comptemplation time went into this aspect of the piece. 

I started each bowl with a blended background, that reflected the perspective, and angle of each one. As mentioned before, they were all sitting on various rings, making them all on different angles. So this affected the perspective of each bowl. 

Then I painstakingly observed the decoration on each bowl, decided how much of it I would include, and worked one bowl at a time in this way. Every time I felt a bit of impatience coming on, I walked away. The secret for me, was to set very small goals each day. In this way, I actually couldn't wait to get at it again, which affected the execution of the piece, for sure. Each bowl became it's own meditation. 

Once the main decoration was on each bowl, I spent a huge amount of time, standing back, seeing the painting as a whole, and tweaking lots of final details. 

 

I could have continued to work on this, blending,  and more and more tweaking. One thing that made it easier to come to a conclusion, was reminding myself that I didn't want it to look like a photo. I want viewers to see the texture, to see my hand, in every stroke. 

I was quite happy with the finished product. What inspired me in the first place was the feeling of abundance and fullness, as I felt when I first saw this table full of bowls. I accomplished my goal. 

Thank you for reading.     

 

 

 

Breaking it down to value and design,...then colour

In my online Open Studio recently, I've been re-inforcing the importance of the thumbnail, where detailed images are simplified into the language of value: dark, medium, and light. Yes, drawing could be involved, but I think using the edge of your medium (graphite, charcoal or pastel stick), and creating more of a block-in, is the way into seeing pattern, and the overall concept of light in your image.  Spending 5 minutes on a thumbnail pays off in seeing it's potential as a composition quickly. 

I chose this winter landscape, because this time of year, we are all seeing design through snow, trees and the light and shadow created. Many of my students are working on winter scenes. So last week, I did this thumbnail. 

Canadian winter landscape thumbnail. Dark, medium, and light.

The thumbnail, in charcoal. I love the softtexture of charcoal that has had a finger run through it. Soft! Then I chose a warm coloured medium value paper, and a medium value cool coloured paper. I'm working 2 of them at once.

Here I chose a pallete to start with, so I'm not using too many colours at once. I applies them closely to eahc other, on the coloured surface I'm going to work on, so I can see the relationships between the colours, and how the paper plays an active part in the colour reaction.

The drawing to begin. I love working on this colour, it's very rich and makes all the other colours rich in contrast. 

Here's my cool coloured paper, with the limited pallette I chose for it. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of just the drawing. 

Cool Version

This is what I did in the demo: It's important to get the values eastblished as quickly as possible, with a light layer of pastel everywhere. The sooner you get the image happening, dark, medium and light, the betterm using less tooth, leaving lots left as the painting develops. 

                                                                        

Without spending too much time on the drawing, I did spend more time with the values, creating subtle value shanges in the shadow area, and experimenting with intense and tinted hues. Serene and still mood. 

The warm version. Has a very differnt effect. It seems like the sun is warm and trying to infiltrate, giving a more positive uplifting mood. 

Completing the Circle A creative journey of a life time.

 

Spontaneous Combustion, 36" X 72", tryptych, oil

Throughout my artistic life, from the time I was a young adult, I craved to find the center of my heart, my truth and my passion,...through art. Looking at great art took my breath away and I wondered if I would be able to ever make incredibly beautiful art, as others had done before me. Would I ever create art that took someones' breath away?

In this time of copying photographs, competitions and the pressure to be "successful" (whatever that means?!?-that's another blog post), how can my only reason for painting be to take someones' breath away? It's so easy to be swept away by the pressures of promotion. 

I've had some personal and professional goals that I wanted to accomplish in my lifetime. It's been the reality of life to put other peoples' needs ahead of your own. I have no regrets -- Mom, girls. While running around in life for others', my imagination would run wild, thinking up all the ways I could take my own breath away, creating beauty. 

I did have the choice to not teach, and just get really ambitious with my painting, but that would have been so much pressure, and let's face it, many people will agree -- Once you start selling your artwork and working with galleries or even just the buying public, the pressure to sell can change who you are and what you say in your art. 

So I could be angry that it's taken this long to realize the dream,.. but it's been happening,...slowly,...for a very long time. It's hard to say I've finally landed, at the tender age of 62. 

This spring was a very busy challenging time. I'm still renovating my house. This year, I painted the exterior (stucco!-not easy!), parged the retaining wall and foundation, and much more! Teaching, public art commissions, and private art commissions all kept me hopping til the end of July.  Then life took a turn and I began a journey into landscape that I had been planning for a long time. 

Spontaneous Combustion,...a starting place. 

I've always been turned on by mosaic, geometry, math, and their place within art. So splitting the picture plane arbitrarily, based more on intuition and less on logic was a very new place for me to go. 

These 4 girls were found at the local public pier in Shanty bay. They were having a ball jumping into the water together. My thing, painting the figure in unusual positions, them  all jumping together. magic! I am thrilled with how the water turned out and feel this expresses more about what I wanted to say, than a realistic painting. The colours create the excitement. 

It was kind of crazy, after not painting anything important for months, to start with a 18 square foot painting, but this is what my intuition was telling me to do. Over the years, I have learnt to trust my intuition. 

French River Rock, 22 X 28 $1350.00

The next piece I started was French River Rocks. I knew I wanted to  follow the contour lines that were in the rock, creating a division of the rockface. But it was what I did in the water that I feel was such an interesting contrast to the organic lines in the rock treatment. I was thrilled with the water when this happened and love the contrast between the rock and water. 

I've described the first two paintings in this series, which I am calling New Directions.  I'm closing the circle and completing the goals and dreams of a lifetime. I've created 12 new paintings in this series since the end of July, and have many other ideas of how I'll be extending other thoughts and creative ideas into future work.  Not too significant, eh?

I will continue to post more about this series,...after the open house and tour, this Thanksgiving weekend, 2022. See you on the other side! 

Margaret

 

Avalon A tribute to my friend, Gaye Trombly

Avalon, 24" w X 36" h, pastel on sanded paper, 2022

I met Gaye in a pastel class several years ago. Her talent as an artist was right there, just under the surface. She had a light, jovial sense of humour, was great fun to be around and we connected on many levels in our respective philosophy of life. 

It wasn't long before I started accepting invitations to paint, and then teach also, at Avalon Orchards. Gaye bought this property to set up some type of farm, and discovered apples grew well in the area. Thus, Avalon was born, and it was a passionate endeavour for many years. With over 10,000 organic apple trees 

not only was this a going concern, but the view of these trees in their spring splendour of full bloom, was quite a heavenly sight to behold. I'm glad I got the chance to paint in this magical period on the farm a few times. 

Gayes' fairly sudden departure from this earth happened last November. She didn't see it coming, leaving her family and friends in dismay at th eloss. Last Sunday, May 30th, we gathered to pay our respects to a wonderful woman. People came from very far away to gain some closure and remember a witty, extremely intelligent, KIND, funny, and loving soul who gave out to so many. 

My painting Avalon is in tribute to Gaye, to remind us of what this type of person stands for. Love, and kindness. What better way to be reminded then through the beauty of nature that surrounds us all. 

Avalon will be on exhibit at the Neilsen Park creative center in Etobicoke, from now til June 18nth. It will then be on exhibit at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection over the summer, before it travels to its forever home.  

 

Everyday Sacred

My first foray into independent online learning began this winter with two advanced classes of pastellists, working indepenently on their own individual ideas and artworks, in an open studio setting. 

My job was to guide these artists to notice the frequency of their concepts/ideas for painting, to document them, organize them, and most importantly, to prioritize, let the best ones, rise to the surface. 

Many years ago, a student of mine from Tennessee gifted me this book, Everyday Sacred (thank you Suzy and Curtis). I knew, at some point, that I would design a course around this book. The concept is philisophically elemental for artists. To pay attention to our everyday lives, and find the sacred in the most familiar, seemingly average days. To find sacred, in the seemingly, at first glance, ordinary. It's all in your state of mind.

One of my jobs is to expose my students to excellent examples of great artworks, born fo great ideas. So we took the time to study and search out artwork by other makers. First, I would create slide shows based on a theme. It could be colour treatment, or subject matter. The following week, each student had to provide an example for another slide show to be shared with everyone.  

It's all about pooling ideas, and developing your own taste. Finding your direction and style in art is as simple as asking oneself whether you like something or not. Over the many years I have taught, I've noticed that students often don't take the time to simply appreciate the work of others. We have no excuse, everything is at our fingertips with the internet. 

I gathered students from Florida to B.C. , one of the great things about online classes, no geographical boundaries. We did this at night for members of the workforce and in the afternoon for my retirees.  

This was not a beginner class, you had to have some experience, in order to feel comfortable working on your own. I do have a process I teahc my students, so they know how to take an idea, create a thumbnail, choose a pallette and have some understanding of composition. 

For many years now, I've been involved in helping my students develop QUALITY ideas and themes in order to develop their voice in art. We talked a lot about working within a theme, but also bounced around a lot with different subject matter. I really enjoyed quite a lot of discussion on winter landscape, but we also delved into flowers, still life, colour saturation, with much discussion on ground choice.

The results of these classes has astounded me. I am so friggin proud of my students! I've seen so much growth, and know that everyone has benefitted so much, from seeing and hearing about the work of the other people in their class. 

I would like to give a BIG thankyou to everyone who attended one of these classes, it has been my honour and privilige to teach you all. I look forward to doing it again. 

B.C. flowers from Janets' garden.

 

Kathys' careful apples.

One of many of Vals' beaches. 

Miriams' original ideas of shape and placement. 

Cindy find the sacred in everyday

Gillians' theme of tulips - a graphic and personal approach

Risk taker Mikkis' Cottage life is sacred.

Audrey captures the mood.

Jennys' love of nature  

Margos' theme, of this sacred plate.

Leilahs' patience has won

Cates' realism realized. 

Julies' lovely and loose Fawn Lily

Thankyou to all my stduents who attended these classes,a nd to those who sent in a piece for this blog post. 

If you work in pastel and have some knowledge and experience and are interested in working independently, in a safe and encouraging atmosphere with other pastellists, please be in touch. 

As always, thanks for listening, Margaret Ferraro.

To contact me about coming into the advanced pastel program, send an e-mail to marg.ferraro@gmail.com

 

Underpainting: so many choices! No right or wrongs, just different effects.

Swing! oil, 20"h X 40"w, with red underpainting, also oil. 

Many years ago, a student gave me a wonderful photo of her daughter swinging. It's just my kind of thing. The figure, in a challenging position, giving the effect of huge fun, full of colour and play. Like many artists, I have a huge collection of images, and sometimes it just takes a lot of time to get to them all. 

So I thought I'd give a little explanation of what happened here, in the evolution of what if? with this image. 

It all started with the large amount of intense and varied greens, everything on the spectrum from blue greens to yellow greens. I've noticed in my extensive work as a plein air painter, that you need a few tricks when working with greenery. This was a studio piece, but plein air informs studio work. I think of plein air as the training and foundation. Plein air gives you spontoneity, easy light choices, and opportunity to try things and learn. From this learning, came the idea of making an underpainting in reds. Warm red at the upper left (cad red medium), fading to cool and darker red, lower right (alizaron crimson). 

What I've observed in past paintings, is that by contrasting pure reds against a host of greens, I can add a lot of fullness and colour harmony to the overall effect, which I thoroughly enjoy. Also, with the structure in place, it's very easy for me to add a little blue and purple in the lower right, and a few different yellows in the upper left. A rainbow of pure pallette. 

 

Swing!, pastel, 12" h X 24"w, with raw sienna underpainting, in oil, on Uart 400 sanded pastel paper. 

This was a demo piece I had the pleasure of painting for SOYRA and RHGA on March 10nth. We didn't quite have enough time to finish, so I promised more images as the piece progressed. The medium is different, (pastel), but the underpainting is quite different. In my work in underpainting, Many students read an artcile that outlines one artists method for creating an underpainting-You know all thos DIY art mags? They are very informative, I'm not knocking them, but there are SOOO many approaches to underpainting, and no right answer about how to do it, which colour it should be. There are no right and wrongs, just different effects created through different choices. 

With that in mind, I wanted to see what would happen with a much bright underpainting. Basically, the first one supports the value system already in place. The 2nd one contrasts against the value system, creating a light overall appearance. Making the light areas more prominent. In fact, when I wrote this, I hadn't included all the lights I wanted and feel the second piece could go much lighter. That's one of the reasons I wanted to try it. Although I do like the intensity of the oil painting, I wondered what the image would look like in a much lighter value range. 

I thought by presenting the two pieces this way, you can observe the different effects. Now, it's just up to me to decide which one is more in tune with my original idea and inspiration.