Pat Dew’s was back again to teach a 5-day watermedia and collage workshop. This years group had an especially good time. The laughing started on the first night at the dinner table and continued right until check out time!

On the second night we had a brief power outage in the town and were prepare to make and serve dinner by candlelight.

But luckily the power was restored just as the salad was being served. Everyone still requested dinner by candlelight, so we left the candles on the table burning and just dimmed the lights. Some marvelous freshly made blueberry pie was the dessert for that night.

In the studio there was a constant buzz of creative excitement as Pat provided lots of demos and the students then took their turn at using the ideas.

This is Roxie Johnson, a digital artist from Hyde Park, NY. Pat asked her to bring in her portfolio of work to the class and Pat herself went home with a couple of Roxie’s pieces.

Pat Dew’s shares a studio with Jada Rowland, a landscape and portrait artist.
Pat talked Jada into stepping out of her normal mode of painting and joining the workshop to tried her hand at abstract work!

Before Pat left she generously gave us a copy of her new DVD – Pat Dews: Let’s Get Started Finishing. It will be in our DVD library, so next time you are here – take a look!

The end of summer has been a whirlwind of activity, so I’m a little behind in my blog posts.

Margaret Dyer was here at the end of August teach a 3-day workshop on pastel figures. Margaret is always a very popular instructor. She had just taught for us the previous year, but all the students clamored for a repeat so we quickly added Margaret to our 2010 schedule.

This talented group of students worked with both nude and clothed models. Margaret kept them challenged with multiple changes of model poses and painting angles.

The 3-day ended too quickly for us and the students! But not to worry Margaret has already agreed to return in 2012 to teach.

The next class up was with Judi Betts. Judi is such a delight to have here. Her enthusiasm and passion for her art is contagious!

Judi introduced a number of exercises to stretch the students skills with using color in their compositions.

Another fun/challenging exercise was when Judi surprized everyone with a male nude model! Ok, the male in question was our Dalmatian, Hudson.

The last time Judi had taught here, Hudson had been a puppy and was slightly less energetic! This time Judi said he was the wiggliest model she’s every worked with.

But everyone did their best to capture the “essence” of Hudson and some really nice sketches resulted.

I was the model handler and if the students wanted a less wiggling model, they could sketch me instead of Hudson.

If was a fun class and several of the students, who have attended many of our workshops, said that Judi was a really wonderful and generous teacher, in fact they said that she was “Xtraordinary”! (Judi’s website is Xtraordinaryart.com.)

Judi Bett’s will also be returning in 2012 to teach another 5-day watercolor workshop.

Maybe we can find a less wiggly male nude model by then!

Several week ago was Stanley Maltman’s pastel workshop here at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops. Stanley is a local artist (from Freehold, NY), but has been getting a lot of national and regional acclaim lately. He has been winning awards and get exhibit invitations left and right. Pretty good for a young 80-something!

Because Stanley has living in this area for such a long time, he knows all of the good painting spots! It was a beautiful weather week and this location on the Catskill Creek was perfect.

Stanley will be teaching a workshop again for us next year – August 7 – 13, 2011, and besides the daily painting instruction, he is going to do an evening presentation on how to frame your pastel paintings.