Diane Hoff's pastel and dualchrome mica painting workshop

This was a day of eye candy and play with important lessons on what I could be doing to improve how I paint. I do criticise my work and that keeps the intuitive under a lid. We were given many tools to give our creative selves permission. Diane has just two more work shops left before going to Scotland where she will build another teaching studio.

The first painting we did was with two colors - a warm and a cool. We looked at the stimulus object in nature but not the paper. I chose a doorway with a chair and planter jars. The purpose of using the non-dominate hand is that you really look and experience nature more fully in a tactile non-verbal awareness. To make this experience different from what I ordinarily do in abstracted painting was to use some architectural angles in the doors and chair. I used the angularity as a opposed to organic form without trying to reproduce the scene.

We picked two colors that we didn't like - Thalo green and lamp black. Also a watercolor pencil . I hated the result until I dripped some dualchrome green and gold to extend the thalo green to another sensation.

On a prepared paper with iridescent gold and mauve tinted paper I used a weathered tree stump for the linear detail and form. The color perole orange was a favorite choice unrelated to the subject. The stump was not important as an object for the painting.

These two paintings on Canson watercolor paper were done playing one off the other. Some dried Fennel pods were the springboard for a beginning to stimulate an inward intuitive journey where playing was the rule of the day. Well the word rule is poor because we were encouraged not to try to make something that fits in preconceived formula. We were trying to shut out the critics in our head and learn from new adventures. These two were done using iridescent pastel and water. I loved the paper and wished to play the paper against the pastel brushed like paint.

Iridescent and duochrome acrylic on dark gray Spectrum toothy sandy paper. The fern texture came from blotting it on another paper pictured below.

Iridescent acrylics on Spectrum pastel mixed media paper from Australia.