Pastels! A Useful Medium NEW! In-Store Class Apr 7

Pastels! A Useful Medium NEW! In-Store Class
Sunday, Apr 7, 1-4pm
Instructor: Grey Grimm
Limit: 6 students. All participants must be 15 years or older.

Class Details:

Pastels have been with us for over a hundred years but have often been overlooked as a medium. The first artists to take them seriously were the Impressionists, followed by Pablo Picasso. Local artist Grey Grimm often uses them. They are her medium of choice for making signs and window displays for Two Hands Paperie as well as for creating her fine art commissions. In this introductory class, she wants to help you discover how much can be done with pastels. 

To begin, she explains what pastels are, when to use them, and how chalk and oil pastels differ.  What’s key with a new medium is actual doing, so she quickly gets you started on exercises to give you a good feel for pastels. You’ll experience how they act on different types of papers, what it’s like to blend colors, and what sgraffito is (hint: it’s Italian). Be playful! Grey also describes what “painting” with pastels means and how professional artists use isopropyl alcohol to create underlayers for their drawings.

After experimenting a bit with the pastels, put your new found knowledge to work by drawing and coloring one of the still life groupings that Grey brings in. Make your drawing realistic, simple line work, totally abstract, or background for another project. You’ll leave class with extra papers to work on (quite a lot!), a sample set of chalk and oil pastels, and experience working with a new medium.

COVID Safety
Due to the limited size of the classroom, social distancing will not be possible. Attendees of the class are welcome to wear masks. Help keep community members and our staff safe, please do not attend the class if you are feeling sick. Please contact twohandsclasses@gmail.com ahead of time if you have specific questions regarding class covid safety.

Class Materials

Please bring the following materials:

• Optional: apron

Class Materials Include:

• Oil pastels, chalk pastels
  
• Set of various sizes and types of paper, suitable for pastels
  
• Paper towels, latex-free gloves, pencils, scraffito tools, etc

Class Refund/Cancellation Policy

Cancellations made up to 14 days prior to the first class meeting will be refunded or, at the participant's option, used to pay for another class. Two Hands Paperie will retain a $10 processing fee for EACH class cancelled by a participant. After 14 days, there is no refund or credit. In addition, the fee for a class cancelled within this 14-day timeframe by a participant cannot be transferred to pay for another class. These policies are to ensure that teachers are compensated for their investment in materials and in time spent preparing for the class. We reserve the right to cancel a class if fewer than 3 students enroll 48 hours prior to the scheduled class time. If for any reason Two Hands Paperie cancels a class, students will be called at the phone number on file and refunded the FULL class fee.

Instructor Bio

Grey Grimm is a classically trained artist who graduated from University of Colorado with a dual degree in fine art and art history. She specializes in oil, charcoal, watercolor, chalkboard design, digital illustration, and murals, and is particularly interested in figure drawing and portraits. Art supplies were always handy as when she was growing up, and art was never something that was dismissed or considered a waste of time. Her father was quite a good painter, and he and his twin brother were both exceptionally good at caricatures. Her paternal grandmother was a creative person, mostly with textiles. 

One early memory of Grey’s is playing with sidewalk chalk. She and the neighborhood kids particularly enjoyed drawing big houses – not from the front but seeing the inside level by level. (She’s always had an eye for different perspectives!) For a long time she was partial to graphite, then moved on to charcoal and then to acrylic paint for a series of portraits of old Hollywood movie stars.. She later discovered pastels, then committed very heavily to oil paint in college. 

Through all the different mediums, her primary interest has been figurative drawing. When she was younger she never quite understood everyone’s fascination with landscapes, but now she appreciates the serenity found in nature. She’s become a novice bird-watcher, and finds profound meaning in landscapes as well as in figurative art. She’d like to expand her portfolio with larger-scale pieces with an eye toward exhibiting in a gallery or museum. Her next goal is to write a children’s book.

Grey found the iPad a few years ago and regularly applies those skills to commissions and to her work at Two Hands Paperie. Check out her art on signs throughout the store. She also does many of the window displays. (She inquired about a job at the store as a temporary stepping stone, and now it’s years later!) She was a featured artist in Uppercase magazine for her digital illustration, and recently returned from an Artist-in-Residence program with Chateau d’Orquevaux in France.