Fiber Revolution is a group of artists that exhibit their work around the country and recently held a retreat at our inn, the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn.
This year they have an exhibit at the Kaaterskill Fine Art Gallery in Hunter, NY. Hunter is only 40 minutes away from us.
This is one talented group, so you don’t want to miss this exhibit. It is open from Nov. 27, 2010 to Jan. 9, 2011. The opening reception is Saturday, Nov. 27th, from 4 – 6 pm.
Mary Whyte is known for her stunning portraits and she is sharing her process with the students in this workshop.
Today is day 2 of portrait work. The day starts with a quick demo by Mary and then the class spends the rest of the day working on their own portraits while Mary circulates around the class offering guidance and advice as needed.
There are two models in the class room with the students spread out around them. One of the models is one of our waitresses, Megan.
Megan says this is the first time she has ever worn a hat!
The other model for the day was Bonita. This is her first modeling experience but she says she is enjoying it very much!
How quickly the week has passed! Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop. During the first half of the day, everyone will get to choose their favorite subject matter – still life, landscape, or portrait, and work on a painting. Then in the afternoon, the group will gather for a critique.
Mary Whyte is here teaching a workshop this week. She will be leading the class through the process of painting still life, landscapes, and portraits.
In case you didn’t see it, Mary was recently featured in a bit on CBS Sunday Morning show about her series of paintings to preserve on paper a vanishing breed of workers. Really worth watching!
Yesterday was spent in the studio working with still life compositions. Today, everyone is outside enjoying the magnificent Fall weather and colors.
This morning they are painting around the Greenville Arms, but this afternoon they will be heading over to a local farm.
The sculpture you see in this photo (the tall “house”) is by a California artist, Lisa Friedman.
Here is Mary giving an individual critique of one of the student’s work from yesterday.
You’ll see how nice the weather is by the short-sleeved t-shirts worn by some. There was a Hudson River Valley Art Workshops t-shirt buying frenzy last night after dinner, including an impromptu fashion parade!
It’s day 4 of Katie Pasquini Masopust’s workshop and everyone is working feverishly to assemble their designs. Colors and fabrics were selected yesterday and no time was wasted at the breakfast table this morning! Before you could say “Scrambled Eggs with Horseradish Cheddar Cheese” (the daily special), everyone had rushed off to the studio to get cracking!
This piece is by Alison Chandler. She is working totally abstract, as a number of others in the class are as well.
I had taken a picture of Alison ironing some of the pieces in place, but decided not to put it on the blog when Alison said, “Oh, great. Now my husband will want me to do ironing for him!” I understand her sentiment – don’t ask an art quilter to iron clothes!
Jane Strickler is working on a still life of a tea pot.
This is friends, Libby and Pam, hard at work in their corner of the studio.
Katie is showing her technique of using spray starch to get a neat edge turn over on the pieces.
This is Barb Caldwell, who is working on a really nice leaf composition.
Everyone is making great progress and I’ll bet the studio lights will be burning late into the evening for a bunch of folks.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of color happening outside of the studio. The leaves on the trees seem to changing right before my eyes. Within a couple days, I’ll bet the trees one either side of the yellow tree with be changed as well.
It is always a grand time when Katie is in the house! She is a wonderful teacher, has a great sense of humor, and has a wealth of knowledge that she generously shares with her students. And she just had one of her own works accepted into Quilt National!
This year Katie is teaching “Transforming the Still Life.” She started everyone off drawing a still life design based on white objects. Everyone was suppose to bring in something white and Katie brought a number of things, too, as well as a spray can of white paint to convert anything to the right color!
Once everyone was finished, all of the white object were gathered together to get picture of one large still life set up!
The group also did exercises creating black and white studies of their designs and then played with watercolors to work up some color schemes for their design.
This is Jane Stricker. Love her color exercises!
Here is the design wall of another student.
Besides enjoying the workshop tremendously (several students have already said they are signing up for Katie’s 2011 workshop here before they leave), everyone is having a great time around the dinner table. It is apple time in New York, so this week is sure to see some yummy apple pies for dessert.
Skip Lawrence always says that in art, the “search is more important than the find”, and in last weeks workshop the class had a grand time searching!
Here are Stan and Rosemary busy with one of their daily challenges.
Skip was constantly circulating through the group to provide individual assistance, as well as preparing for his daily demos.
I love this piece by Peggy Gardner!
Another regular, Ruth Rooks, was busy in her corner creating some wonderful figurative pieces.
Kenn Backhaus taught a wonderful workshop just a couple of weeks ago. This was his Study to Studio class.
The week was prime for Fall color — if only the weather would cooperate! And it did finally on Wednesday. It was a glorious, sunny Fall day and Kenn immediately took the group to Olana, the historic home of Frederick Church.
They started out down by the pond and barn buildings, then at lunch time Kenn moved them up to the site of the house.
The views were magnificent!
Here are some student comments about Kenn and the workshop:
Kenn is an outstanding, dedicated teacher. He teaches concept and thought process, as well as many technical things. He have many hours of this time beyond the 9 to 4.
The combination of the Victorian Inn, the wonderful instruction, the meals, and comradery, and the time to work at painting was a little bit of heaven for me.
—– Marla S.
The class surpassed my expectations. Kenn is a patient, understanding teacher who imparts his knowledge freely to the class.
— Sandra K.