Volume XXXII, Issue 6 Nov/Dec 2021
Dustbuster News
Letter From the SPS President
Dear Members,
Fall is here and we’ve actually had some welcome cool weather. The holidays won’t be far behind. It looks like we’ll be able to celebrate with our families this year. I hope you have looked at our website, it is amazing and getting better every day. It definitely was worth all the pain and suffering involved.
The Tony Allain workshop was well attended. Tony is a fabulous artist and kept us busy. Students remarked how it felt like we were together in the studio. We had the choice of watching Tony paint or painting along, most students did a combination of both. Best of all, Tony has become an SPS member. Welcome Tony!
This will be my last Prez Says, after much thought I decided not to run for another term as your President. I have accomplished what I set out to do, SPS is stronger than ever. The past year has been the best, so many new volunteers with new ideas and the future looks bright. I am not going to disappear, just step back. I have so many things I want to try, who knows, I might even get my studio cleaned up once and for all.
Thank you all for your love and support over the years. I wish each and everyone of you Happy Holidays and best wishes for a Happy New Year!
Cyndi
Member News!
Sharing your news with SPS members has become easier than ever! We have an entire page of our new website dedicated to your artistic accomplishments, workshops, events or publications. Basically, anything that’s happening in your art world can be shared with other members. Use the Share News Link in the Box above or within the Members Only area when you log in with your user name and password. You don’t even have to wait for a specific date/deadline. So, what are you waiting on? Please share!
SPS Programs Update
All programs will be VIA Zoom
Our Fall season has been back with lots of exciting and engaging changes. We want to thank Debora Stewart for sharing her process with us in September. She carried us from concept to completion while informing us about her love for color and mark making. Her layering and looseness was an inspiration as we got to know her and live in her artistic world for a bit. We have included the completed demo here in the newsletter for you to enjoy. We are excited to have Debora host an online workshop in April. More information will be released closer to the end of the year but save the date April 8-10th.
October Program Recap: Linda Richichi
Linda Richichi delivered the October program and we got a virtual tour of her studio as well as a behind the scenes look at how she views, senses and hears color! She took a scene from her everyday life and transformed it with her beautiful painting. She shared with us her color palette and how she formed her signature set from Richeson. Linda loves working on Ampersand pastelboard and often stains it with a vibrant alcohol wash to begin. We have included her completed demo here for you to enjoy.
Upcoming Programs
November
Next month, November 8th, we will have plein air artist and teacher Shawn Dell Joyce as she shares her superpower of using reflective light to “Breathe Life into Paintings.” We are excited to have her adventurous spirit to guide us through a demo and talk with us about her journey. Shawn Dell has been featured in Plein Air Magazine this past month and travels all over the Southeast.
December
In December, we have something special planned for you all featuring product knowledge. The focus will be on using three different surfaces and highlighting different artists that primarily use the products to get feedback and application knowledge. The first 60 registrants will receive a substrate sampler pack in the mail. We will have a very brief follow along exercise so people can experience the materials. You don’t have to have a sample packet to attend. The knowledge will benefit everyone. Priority registration will be given to the membership so be sure to sign up early!
SPS Workshop Update
On October 16th and 17th, SPS sponsored the Workshop – Tony Allain: CREATIVITY UNTAMED; From Sketch to Frame! A master at creating incredible landscapes, Tony painted more than a dozen demos and shared a wealth of knowledge and experience. He provided lots of tips and showed a variety of techniques. We learned a great deal about the necessity for using preliminary sketches, using vibrant colors, and being confident in our mark making.
Many of the 15 participants painted along with Tony during the demos and then shared their lovely paintings with the group. In addition to being a great artist, he is a very engaging teacher and has a unique way of incorporating stories about the scenes he paints. Tony taught the course from his home in Scotland via zoom and that worked quite well. In the future we hope to have him come to Atlanta and teach an in-person workshop.
SPS Membership
The Southeastern Pastel Society is on a roll!! Thanks to our fabulous new website and our programs that can invite people from across the world, the renewed interest in our organization has been incredible. Not only are we up to 200 people attending our meetings (and highly complimentary of the programs offered) but they are excited about becoming involved. Since August 24, 2021, we have enrolled 18 new members and that brings our total to 185 members! The past year has seen explosive growth, and thank you to the many hours invested by new volunteers that have stepped up for the key positions. Since we are now a virtual organization, if you have any talents that you want to share without even leaving your kitchen table, send a note and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the group that can use your energy!
Marilyn Kleinhans – Membership Chair
Amazon Smiles
SPS INVITES YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE AMAZON SMILE PROGRAM TO BENEFIT SPS
SPS invites its members, family and friends to support our society through the Amazon Smiles program. The Amazon Smile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible Amazon Smile purchases. It’s a very simple way to make your everyday purchases benefit SPS. There is no extra cost to you. Simply click on the Amazon Smiles box at the bottom of our web page. You will be prompted to choose a charity. Once you designate Southeastern Pastel Society as your charity, you will simply make your normal purchases via the AmazonSmile.com browser. It’s important to remember, only purchases at smile.amazon.com or through AmazonSmile activated in the Amazon Shopping app will support SPS. To make it easy, you can download the Amazon Smile app or save the AmazonSmile link on your computer’s browser. We appreciate your support and look forward to the benefiting from the impact that this program offers.
The Story Behind the NEW Website
Can we say, “WHEW!!?” The process of creating a new website began almost a year ago when Terri Whitesel and Anne Spivey spent (lots of) time learning about the current functionality of the original website (which was amazing in its day to say the least) and then investigating the countless options available to meet the needs of our growing organization. We knew with the growing virtual environment we needed to act fast. Terri no longer was able to help with the website and fortunately, Anne listened to Cheryl Tryon who suggested that she reach out to Sandie Terry for help. Sandie came along in the nick of time to help make our dream of a new website become a reality. Anne and Sandie’s partnership turned out to be the perfect ‘marriage’ and quickly resulted in gaining an unanimous vote from the Board to begin web development in the early Spring. We are very proud to say that we were able to stay on track and hit our target of going Live in early Fall despite some very real technical snafus along the way (no need to go into the details).
We would be remiss if we didn’t send out a huge shout out to all of the people who helped to make this new website a reality: The Board Members, Terry Metzler, Cheryl Tryon, Becky Postell, Tomasyn Breazeale, Terri Whitesel, Nancy and Don Nowak. The biggest thank you goes to Luiz Varanda at Reason Labs, Anne Spivey and to our Web Administrator, Sandie Terry.
More about Sandie, our Web Administrator :
Sandie followed a career path in technology but geeks do love art! She leveraged books and workshops to learn more about art, composition and pastel techniques. As with most artists, she has a strong desire to portray the beauty in this world in a way that stimulates the emotions in others that she felt when viewing the subject.
Her paintings are found in private collections in Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico. She has also had the honor to place in a local art shows, juried into national exhibitions and received an Honorable Mention in Southeastern Pastel Society’s 2020 International Juried Exhibition for her painting “Dad’s Hug”