We revisited the amazing pastel florals and self-portraits of Jimmy Wright in the June 2009 issue of The Pastel Journal. Now you can see them in person in an upcoming retrospective at the Springfield Art Museum:

To find out how to enter your work in the next Creative Spark challenge, click here.

Being represented by a gallery brings a number of benefits: increased visibility, new collectors, and fewer responsibilities related to the business side of selling art, which means more time to create! Landing a gallery requires not only artistic talent but also professionalism and persistence. In our latest online seminar (led by Kristin Hoerth, Editor in Chief of Southwest Art ) you'll learn :

• How to choose the right galleries to approach
• What kinds of materials galleries like to receive
• The proper format for submitting your work
• Whether you should visit a gallery in person
• How and when to follow up with a gallery

Everyone who signs up for this seminar will receive free online access to the recording of the session following the live event. Click here to learn more about A Guide to Professional Etiquette.

Autumn Field (12x12) by Marla Baggetta

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.”—John Donne

Show us one or more pastel paintings you’ve done that were inspired by the beauty of autumn. E-mail your image(s) as JPGs with a resolution of 72 dpi to pjedit@fwmedia.com by October 22, 2009. Include the title, dimensions and a brief description. Please type “Creative Spark” in the subject line and include your name, e-mail and mailing address. The “editors’ choice” will be published in the February 2010 issue of the magazine.

If you're interested in seeing all of M. Katherine Hurley's pastel video, visit ArtistsNetwork.tv. Several viewing options are available, including online streaming video, DVD and instant downloads for your desktop.

Using the finished work, Red, Yellow, Blue (top; pastel on paper, 29½x22½) as a model, Jimmy Wright painted Study From Red, Yellow, Blue (bottom; pastel on paper, 10½x14½), a more graphic and turbulent version of the same composition. To read the full text of Wright's challenge, cick here.

To join in the fun, show us an example of a pastel painting in which you reinterpreted a previously finished work. E-mail your image/s (4x6-inch JPGs with a resolution of 72 dpi) and a description to pjedit@fwmedia.com by June 22, 2009. Type “Creative Spark” in the subject line and include your name, e-mail and mailing address. The “editors’ choice” will receive a $250-value fine art media gift basket, including a six-month subscription to ArtistNetwork.tv online video workshops, $60 worth of North Light art books or DVDs; the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Pastel Journal CDs; and a one-year subscription (or free renewal) to The Pastel Journal, The Artist’s Magazine or Southwest Art.

Come back soon to see the winners of our last Creative Spark challenge, Perpetual Motion.

Features
One Still Life, Three Visions
By Anne Hevener
Explore the power of creative expression when three painters—Leslie Lillien Levy, Claudia Seymour and Rainie Crawford—paint from a single still life setup.

Bold Variations
By Sarah A. Strickley
In the first of our 10th Anniversary “Artist Interview Series” installments, we chat with Jimmy Wright about his latest encounters with the still mesmerizing sunflower.

Sacred Silence
By Deborah Secor
Elizabeth Mowry, the second painter in our “Artist Interview Series,” talks about her current experience with pastels, landscape painting, and how her creative goals have evolved.

Regal Resonance
By Ken Gofton
British artist and Royal Academician Anthony Eyton, who finds inspiration in a variety of subjects, turns his artist’s eye to everything from portraits, to botanical gardens, to abandoned power plants.

The Pastel Royals
By Ken Gofton
Four members of Britain’s Royal Academy also share the distinction of honorary status in the Pastel Society UK, making them the “crown jewels” of England’s pastel scene.

Cosmos of Pattern
By Tamera Lenz Muente
Rick Stevens’ abstracted landscapes burst with colorful patterns that mimic the naturally occurring patterns of the land.

Columns
Art Matters
By Jessica Canterbury
Find out where pastels and pigs meet, celebrate Old Masters, and discover new online videos.

Pastel Pointers
By Richard McKinley
When a photograph must be your reference, use your tools to make sure it captures the live experience as much as possible.

Artist’s Viewpoint
By Margot Schulzke
When it comes to the use of black and white in painting, there are some gray areas.

Studio Smarts
By Deborah Secor
Discover a few illuminating tips for creating a well-lit studio.

Creative Spark
By Jimmy Wright
Sharpen your descriptive powers by returning to a subject you know for reinterpretation.

To order your copy of the June 2009 issue of The Pastel Journal, click here.

You know those reality television shows wherein a professional "organizer" comes into a catastrophically cluttered office and whips everything right into shape? I like to think of our CD compilations as just such a force. Box or bind your leaning stacks of print magazines and store digital versions right on your desktop for easy access. Our 2008 archives are now available on CD. That's nearly 500 pages of information, instruction and inspiration for pastel artists on ehanced PDF files. Searchable, portable, printable! Visit the new North Light online shop for details.

And while you're in the mood for celebration, don't forget to watch our Anniversary Slide Show, or meet our 10th Annual Pastel 100 winners.

One of the most exciting moments in the editorial process that begins with recruiting the talented pastel artists you see featured in our pages and ends with the magazine arriving at your doorstep, is choosing which painting will appear on our cover. There are many variables involved—orientation, composition and color, to name only a few—but our primary aim is to select a painting that will convey the tone and timbre of the work happening in pastel today, while also drawing the eye of potential readers at the newsstand. Care to lend us a hand with our selection for our June 2009 issue? We'd love to hear what you think. Cast your vote for the best The Pastel Journal cover by clicking here or on the covers above.

The staff of The Pastel Journal is shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of artist Al Zerries. Zerries has long been a friend of the magazine and his work has also appeared often in the pages of our sister publications, The Artist's Magazine and Watercolor Artist. On a personal level, the interviews that I conducted with the artist in preparation for the feature I wrote on his work for the December 2008 issue of The Pastel Journal, were among the most riveting and rewarding I've had as an editor. His determination as an artist and a writer were and are an inspiration to me and I'll always remember our talks fondly. In celebration of Zerries' work and his working life, we offer this slide show of his portraits in pastel, watercolor and oil, along with our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Alchemy (25½x39¾) by Peter Seltzer

I use a responsive method of painting, feeling out the areas where I need to strengthen light, subdue it, or emphasize elements of the composition. It’s not uncommon for me to spread the focus across the picture plane. Instead of having one isolated area that’s the main focus, I tend to allow for the eye to move across the composition with relatively equal attention to the elements in the eye’s path.

Alchemy is a good example of a painting that works in this way. There’s a lot going on in this piece, to say the least, but if you really look at it, you’ll see there’s a certain repetition of forms, horizontals and elements that move the eye across. Working this way demands that you have a good degree of control over your movement, so that the viewer’s eye moves.

Creating rhythm brings a subtle organization to a potentially chaotic composition containing many elements.  Just as there is rhythm in music that underlies the melody and helps move us through the song, we can also create visual rhythm, which guides the viewer’s eye through the painting. 

Try using some similar shapes and sizes, repetition of color and even similar negative spaces to establish unobtrusive flow.  There is always a delicate balance in achieving movement. Can you move the viewer’s eye without being too obvious? You don’t want the rhythm to overtake the melody.

Try This at Home
Show us one of your pastel paintings (or several) and tell us what you did to direct the viewer’s eye through the composition. E-mail images to pjedit@fwpubs.com (as a 4x6-inch JPG image with a resolution of 72 dpi) by April 20, 2009. Type “Creative Spark” in the subject line and include your name, e-mail and mailing address. The “editors choice” will receive a half-stick set of new Colourfix Pastels, a Rainbow Pack of Colourfix Paper and a Colour Shaper blending set (total value $160).