Sunday, August 5, 2012

Colored Pencil Workshop with Gary Greene

Sunday August 5th we at Grip-All Jaws went with our Orbital Easels to a workshop at the headquarters of art supply manufacturer Daniel Smith in Seattle. The workshop was on Creating Radiant Flowers in Colored Pencil and was presented by Gary Greene, probably the world's preeminent colored pencil artist and instructor and author of several books. Check out Gary's website. We won't even go to the home page but directly to the gallery. Yes, every image is colored pencil.
Gary spoke at some length about the unique virtues of colored pencil as a medium. We were able to explore the translucence of colored pencil and the ability to lay color on color and blend. Way cool!



We got lots of one on one individual instruction and Gary was generous about sharing his philosophy, his expertise, and his skill with each of us.We all learned a great deal and had fun doing it. The young lady at the right, Melissa Davis, was far and away the best of us.
We were all doing the same subject and this is Melissa's example. We learned about pencil types, papers, stroke techniques, colors, blending, burnishing, you name it.
We had taken the Orbital Easels to field test the new desktop base.
The new base is a non-skid table mount that doesn't require clamps. We had a great time but more importantly the new Orbital Easel base is a hit. By the way, that large painting at the back is about 3 feet wide and is colored pencil. Gary said it took more than 300 hours to complete.

More news about the Orbital Easel and the new base coming up.