Sarah Brown and Sandy Bilodeau

From left: Claire Tremblay (behind easel), Nicole St. Pierre, Colin Browning, Mary Sexton, Janet Gendreau, Helen Bryant, Sarah Brown

I had a wonderful time in Massachusetts with 8 very talented artists. We meet in the beautiful studio of Sandy Bilodeau and the setting is perfect for creativity and sharing. The two themes for this workshop were broken color and loosening up. My first day’s painting really encompassed both of these, the second was less successful!  But my struggles gave the opportunity for others to offer solutions and that was great.

Teaching is something that I thrive on. I am fortunate to have groups of people in Maryland and Massachusetts who I can teach on an ongoing basis. But I’m also planning to develop a 3-4 day workshop based on my book that I can give to others. There are many people giving plein air workshops, but what I’d really like to teach is how to successfully work from photographs. While it’s often considered tabu, most of us do it and sometimes not that well! More and more, what I thrive on is working from black and white photos, focusing first on shapes, then using an intuitive approach to the color. The creative process begins when I see something and snap the photo. Then I can play with it on the computer (cropping mainly) and do small studies that might lead to a bigger painting. In my next post, I will show some of these studies from my trip this past week.

If this is something that you think others in your area, or your pastel society would enjoy, let me know. My schedule for 2014 is fairly open. I teach from late Sept. to early April on Mondays and Tuesdays, but have a little flexibility. From April to early September, I can be available to give a workshop. You can email me at: jeanhirons@comcast.net.

In other news, you can read an interview with me at http://laboocks.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-interview-with-artist-jean-hirons.html.  Thanks to Lori-Ann Boocks, whose beautiful paintings were recently shown at my church in Bethesda.