Eva Vorfeld

“Blaauw naakt, liggend” © Eva Vorfeld

Name: Eva Vorfeld

URL:  http://www.evavorfeld.com/

Bio: Eva Vorfeld, was raised in southern France, but began her formal art studies in the Netherlands. She demonstrated her talent for observation and drawing during her high school in Aix-en-Provence, which formed ​​her decision to study art after her baccalauréat. She started at at The Hague Royal Academy, where her preference for figurative art was not appreciated, so she increasingly went her own way, even studying on her own back in Provence. Her work gained a following and she had her first exhibition at the SIAU gallery in Amsterdam.
She briefly studied law at the University of Avignon, but after a returned to art, stutying in the more sympathetic atmosphere of the Academy Minerva in Groningen, long a conservatory of figurative art. While still a student there was much interest in her work.

Medium: Pastel, oil

Subjects: Figurative; landscape

Style: Representational, in an impressionistic manner.

Navigation: Website is in Dutch, and purports to be in French but I could not get the French link to work. So click on TEKENINGEN/SCHILDERIJEN on the home page.

Gallery: Museum : Naakten (Nudes); Landschappen (Landscapes) ; Portretten (Portraits); Overige (The rest)

Image View: Thumbnails open in new page; the enlarged image may not be very large. Dimensions and medium are not consistently addressed. Blue Nude, Lying is 600 x 344, 235 KB.

Blog/Demo: No

New artists

Sometimes I feel that this blog is getting beyond me. This happens especially when I discover that I am adding artists to my "waiting list" faster than I am getting to review their websites. And now it's happening again. Here follows a list of names recently added to the waiting list - as usual for this list, the artist's first name (prénom) comes first, followed by surname (nom).

Alexandre Moreau

Annie Cassez

Claude Vallepin

Claudine Vallepin

Christiane Rosset

Françoise Ensinger

Gregory Wellman

Heather Harman

John Philbin Dolan

Kit Gentry

Nadia Turpault

Paul Regnier

Robin Swaby

Yves Garandel

Yyvette Bonnet-Fretin

The French Pastel Society, La Société des Pastellistes de France, recently held a competition to find the best pastel artists that had never exhibited with them, and the top ten winners are now posted on their website. Congratulations to all. The first prize is a place on a painting course in County Mayo, Ireland, under the tutelage of Master Pastellist Gwenneth Barth. I hope the weather remains as good as it is forecast!
Concours 2012 - Découverte des plus beaux talents - Classement final. Outre les prix reçus, les oeuvres des 10 premiers seront exposéss aux salon international 2012 à Feytiat, Limoges.

Maxime Bochet

“La flamme rousse” © Maxime Bochet

Name: Maxime Bochet 
URL: http://www.mbochet.com/ 
Bio: Self-taught French artist Maxime Bochet was practically born with a pencil in his hand. After a lifetime in advertising, Bochet took up garden design. Then in 2000 he discovered pastels and has since expressed his vision in the magic of exploding lights. He is founder and member of Vocation Pastel where he teachs pastel and drawing, and a member of L'Art du Pastel en France. Bochet lives in Voisins-le-Bretonneux, in the south-western suburbs of Paris. He has exhibited widely in France and in the USA and his work is in private and public collectons, including the Museum of Pastel in Saint-Aulaye, Dordogne. He counts among his awards the Gold Medal for Pastel at the Salon de Prestige Les créateurs du siècle - Lyon 2008, and the First Prize for Pastel at the Art et culture exhibition at St Marcel in 2010. 
Medium: Pastel. 
Subjects: Wildlife, Landscape, Still life. 
Style: Representational
Navigation: Website is basic, and in French. It is frame-based. 
Gallery: Oeuvres: Fleurs (Flowers), Animaux (Animals), Paysages/ Marines (Landscape/Seascape), Sculptures; Personnages; Dessins au trait (line drawings). 
Image View: Thumbnails in left frame open in main frame; right-click is disabled. Dimensions are not always labelled. La flamme rousse is 57 x 69 cm. 
Blog/Demo: No

Lynn Morgan

“Helping Hands” © Lynn Morgan

Name: Lynn Morgan

URL:  http://www.lynnmorgangallery.com/wordpress/

Bio: Lynn Morgan was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan; the family moved to Florida when she was 13 years old and she has been there ever since. She took a Bachelor’s Degree in Education and a Masters Degree in Human Resources Management but after 35 years in corporate America, she retired to follow her particular rainbow. She studied art at Palm Beach State College, the Armory Art Center, and the Lighthouse Center for the Arts and has taken workshops with Robbie Laird, Barbara Nechis, Terri Ford and Margaret Dyer. Lynn worked in acrylic and watercolour until she discovered the richness and vibrancy of pastels. Her varied subject matter is inspired by her travels in the US, Europe and the South Pacific, and by her family.

Lynn is a member of the Pastel Society of America, National Association of Women Artists, Artists of Palm Beach County, Southwest Florida Pastel Society, Boca Raton Museum Artists' Guild and the North County Art Association.

Medium: Pastel. Lynn likes to work on UArt sanded paper, and on Clairefontaine Pastelmat.

Subjects: Figurative, landscape, portraits and some glassworks.

Style: Representational to impressionistic. Lynn lists here influences as Cezanne, Matisse, Bonnard, Bischoff (it’s not clear if it’s Elmer Bischoff, or Franz) and Linda Christensen.

Navigation: Links remain available on top of page. This is a well thought out Wordpress blog.

Gallery: Portfolio: Landscape; Figurative; Portrait. You may also view galleries that are classified in series: Figurative Works Gallery; Gallery Series; Mall Series; France Series; Portraits Gallery; Abstracts Gallery.

Image View: Thumbnails open on same page in a pop-up viewer, and may be saved. Paintings are well labelled. Helping Hands is 21x27 ins. 800 x 591, 74 KB.

Blog: Although the website is in Wordpress, there is a specific blog link: http://www.lynnmorgangallery.com/wordpress/blog/

Muriel Gutierrez

“Paysage de Meinier ” © Muriel Gutierrez

Name: Muriel Gutierrez

URL: http://www.mg-pastel.ch/

Bio: Swiss artist Muriel Gutierrez's first adventures in art were with pencils or ink. A fortuitous birthday present opened the world of pastels to her and she has concentrated on this medium ever since. At first confining herself  to local exhibitions, as she gained experience and confidence she opened up new horizons. She has taken lessons from Marie-Rose Tudeau, artist and teacher at Bois CARAN, and at Feytiat  with the Société des Pastellistes de France. Her work and technique has now been featured on the brochure for the new (April 2012) pastel cubes and pencil from Caran d'Ache.
Medium: Pastel

Subjects: Portraits; Animals; Landscape; Still life.

Style: Representational

Navigation: Website is in French; links remain available on top (and bottom) of page. The galleries are easy to navigate back or forth.
Gallery: Les Oeuvres: Portraits; Paysages; Marines; Animaux; Fleurs; Natures Mortes.

Image View: Thumbnails enlarge in a viewer, where the enlargements may be viewed serially; they may be further enlarged - sometimes very sizeable on a new page - and saved. Paintings are generally labelled with dimension. Paysage de Meinier is 48  x 38 cm, and downloads at 1.92 MB – I have resized it down for this blog.

Demo: No

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqVyYVKorkc 

Colour charts

UPDATED APRIL 2014
I don't usually post anything other than reviews on this blog, but I went to some trouble to collect all these links for my other blog and I thought that I might as well repeat it here for those of you who don't check out Pastelprogress. (Shame on you!)
One of the most useful tools for a practising artist is a personal colour chart of all the pastels in his/her collection - leaving room for additions either by hue or tonal value. The next most useful tool is a set of manufacturers' colour charts. These will allow you to see the full range of colours available, and also permit you to preselect pastel sticks before sending your hard-earned money into the ether. Most manufacturers provide a colour chart online - either a pdf document or a set of jpeg images. Some makers will provide a printed chart, with or without an online version; the posher ones will do a handmade chart - at a price. I am listing here the major pastel makers, with a web address for their colour chart pages. 

Jackson's Soft Handmade Pastels are new to to the market as of April 2014. Of the highest professional quality, There are 200  colours, tints and shades in the full range, as well as wide array of themed selection sets. Sets of 14 individual Soft Pastels ordered are presented in a handy pastel set box. Each pastels is about 2 ins (50 mm) in length and about 5/8 inch wide; they are not unlike Unison. They are described as lightfast, with the exception of the 4 fluorescent colours; in use they are soft and buttery,  not quite as soft perhaps as Sennelier, and Schminke, but not far off. They retail at approximately £1.50 each, thus making the full set reasonably attainable for the serious pastellist. A colour chart will be available in pdf format; this is an image of the range:

Jackson's Hard Pastels are manufactured by Jackson's Art Supplies. The full set consists of a modest 64 colours supplied in square half-sticks. There is a very useful range of neutrals in grey and in earth shades; two rather day-glow shades of pink and orange respectively; and a set of blues and greens that includes shades for blue and turquoise seas. When I checked the catalogue the full set appeared to be retailing at an astonishing £7.95 - at that price they are perfectly pitched at the beginner who wants a decent range of colours without breaking the bank. This set retails at the price of about 3 full sticks from the main pastel makers. I have given them a brief trial, and they glaze well over existing layers on paper such as Canson Mi-Teint Touch. They are softer than Nupastel,  - somewhere in the region of Rembrandt perhaps. There is no colour chart, so I have photographed the set for posting here. I have no information on light-fastness or pigment to binder ratio at this time.

Jackson's Pastel Set

Blue Earth Pastels are available in 10 boxed sets, each consisting of 21 individual sticks, organized by hue, value and intensity. Six of the boxes represent the warm and cool side of the primary colors and three boxes are devoted to the secondary colors. Each contains the hue in six values from light to dark and 14 greyed variations. The tenth box is composed of warm and cool grays, warm and cool whites, and black.
As of Fall 2013, this range has been expand to 336 pastels. For each of the color ranges, a fourth row or 'D' line has been added. This row is further de-saturated with the complement for a very subtle, neutralized, grayed row of color. With this addition, each color range set now has 28 colors. A new Turquoise set of 28 colors was added to fill a gap in the previous color range.
Here is the Blue Earth colour chart before the expansion of the range (for the updated chart, see the website).

The website is http://www.blueearthpastels.com/ and the pastels are available from Dakota Art Pastels.


The sample chart I am posting here is a jpeg from Henri Roché Pastels - one of the ten magnificent charts provided on their website.

Pastels Henri ROCHÉ are currently available in 850 colours.

A colour chart is available as 10 jpeg images, as a pdf nuancier, or as a hand-made colour-chart of 648 nuances for 240 euros. http://www.lamaisondupastel.com/shop/shop_classic.php?langue=en

Sennelier Pastels, also French, are very soft and come in a range of 525 colours including the glitters. You may download a pdf chart at http://www.sennelier.fr/article/photo/dossier1/Nuancier_Pastel_Ecu.pdf

Swiss manufacturers Caran d'Ache have just (April 2012) launched a range of pastel "cubes" (square sticks) and pencils in a range of 84 colours, to complement one another. The colour chart may be saved as a pdf at  http://www.pastels.carandache.com/pdf/nuancier_pastels_pencils_cubes_carandache.pdf
The very soft Schminke pastels of Germany likewise provide a pdf version of their selection at http://www.schmincke.de/fileadmin/bilder/Farbkarten/Pastell_Farbkarte.pdf

Belgian manufacturer Blockx has 204 colors in individual sticks or assortments. Again a pdf is provided at http://www.blockx.be/fr/produits/cartes%20de%20nuance/PASTELS%20W.pdf

Dutch maker Rembrandt has a range of 214 colours - each colour enlarges on screen on mouseover, but you can download the chart at http://rembrandt.royaltalens.com/en/colourchart/colour/rsp 

Great American Art Works are available in 468 colors. There are four charts presented as savable jpegs: Earth; Grey; Unique; Chromatics. The link is http://www.greatpastels.com/color_chart.html

Back to France. 
Pastels Girault has 300 colors, although they are aiming for a range of 526. Currently these colours are graded by theme into four sets: Portrait, Landscape’ Flowers/Fruit, Background. Click on each colour to see it at sidebar - they cannot be downloaded. The whole website needs a makeover. It seems stuck in the same time warp as the French Pastel Society used to be before it escaped! Roché Pastels currently has the coolest website - it was designed by Antoine Leblond, son of pastellist Camille Leblond. http://www.pastelsgirault.com/girault_pastels.htm

Terry Ludwig has a 515 colour pastel line. Only hand made charts are available at 40 dollars each - I don't know if that is per set, or for all 515. No charts are visible on line, so I have not given the web address - it is easy to find with a search engine.
Diane Townsend has three lines of pastel - softform, terrages, and thin line. You can download a jpeg image of the collections - boxed sets, not a chart. There are sets of all 120 Solid pure colors, 120 Light (L) and 120 Dark (D) variations of each color and 48 exotic colors set (10 fluorescent, 7 iridescent, 15 pearlescent and 16 metallic). That comes to 408 in total. Go to http://www.townsendpastels.com/ and choose the line you want.
Holbein are a Japanese product. The 144 colour line is made using an entirely computerized process to ensure uniformity of both color and consistency. The medium soft consistency and the square shape are suitable for edge, lines and detail. You can buy a handmade colour chart for 15 dollars from suppliers such as Dakota. The Holbein website has a range of colour charts for their various products, and you can print off the chart you want. If you want to download the pastel chart you must right-click on the link and open the link in a new tab or window. Or just go directly to: http://www.holbeinhk.com/images/ch_artist_soft_pastels.jpg
Mount Vision has 347 colours with 3 duplicates added to make an even 350. Greg Biolchini chose the colors for the 50 Workshop set. It is an all-purpose set containing colors that mix well, with the selection weighted toward darker colors. The 25 Basic, Portrait and Landscape Add-on sets allow you to expand the Workshop 50 set with no duplication of colors! A handmade chart is available from supplier for 25 dollars.On the website the colurs are present as sets of 3 to six shades ( there are 11 greys) and these must be saved individually; you can also right click between the colours and choose the print option. Go to http://www.mountvisionpastels.com/colors.htm
Australian manufacturers Artspectrum have a range of approximately 150 colours. The chart can be printed off the website, but not saved as am image, although again the individual colours can, if you have the patience. The web address is http://www.artspectrum.com.au/old/soft_pastles.html
Note: the mis-spelling of "pastles" is a real error in the web address; use it as spelled, do not correct it.
Faber Castell have a range of soft pastels, and pastel pencils, that complement each other. Colour charts are available as downloadable pdf files - you will nee Adobe Acrobat reader (or an alternative such as Nitro pdf reader.) THe 60 Pitt pastel pencils chart is at http://www.fabercastell.com/bausteine.net/file/showfile.aspx?downdaid=6037&domid=1010&fd=0
The 120 Polychromos pastel sticks link is http://www.fabercastell.com/bausteine.net/file/showfile.aspx?downdaid=6035&domid=1010&fd=0
Pan Pastels are available in 20 pure colours, 20 tints, 20 shades, and 20 extra darks. Go to http://www.panpastel.com/colors.html to download a pdf file. Or go directly to http://www.panpastel.com/images/pdfs/colorchart.pdf and miss a step.
NuPastel charts are available from a number of websites. There are 96 colours in this range of square section firm sticks. You can download a blank chart in which to put your own colours from http://www.prismacolor.com/Style%20Library/PrismaColor/media/promotions/PrismacolorPastelChart.pdf
If you want a pre-coloured chart there are several options: http://www.jaynscott.com/prismacolor/nupastel-chart.html and go to this link for the complete NuPastel colour chart as a downloadable GIF file: http://www.reuels.com/reuels/Nupastel_Half-Hard_Pastel.html
or here as a pdf: http://www.hyatts.com/pdf/ARTMNupastelCC.pdf
Or you can download a set of seven small images at http://www.rexart.com/media/color_charts/sanford/nupastel/nupastel1.html
A hand-made chart for the Korean Mungyo Gallery Artists semi-hard pastels has been posted on the WetCanvas forum on http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617284  Just scroll down the page until you find them.  The Mungyo range includes extra-fine soft; soft; and semi-hard pastels (oil pastels too).  To download the most comprehensive colour chart ever, that encompasses the whole range, go to http://www.mungyo.co.kr/eng/color.pdf
Derwent Pastels 36 square hard pastels chart: http://www.pencils.co.uk/streamblob.ashx?blob=%2ffiles%2fproductchart%2fPastels+Chart__u50vdhgr.pdf
For the pencils, go to http://www.pencils.co.uk/product.aspx?mid=725  and click on the colour chart link at the bottom of the page.
Stabilo CarbOthello pencils don't seem to have a chart that may be downloaded, but you can print this page if you right click and take the print option: http://www.stabilo.com/penfinder/fineart/html/products_gb/gb/carbo_c.htm

Finally, from the United Kingdom, Unison Pastels. There are nearly 400 colours ranging from subtle greys and earth colours to brilliant reds, blues, greens and yellows. The pastels are supplied in Mixed, Portrait and Landscape colours in boxes of 8, 18, 36 and 72 colours, but are also available individually. The colour charts are available only on screen – they cannot be downloaded except, curiously, as individual colours – have fun! The best you can do is download the image of the half-stick set of 63, on  http://www.unisoncolour.co.uk/colours.aspx?Group=half%20stick%20sets&Page=half%20stick%2063%20set You can email the manufacturer for a printed version. Of course, you can always use the Prt Sc button on your PC and paste the image into Photoshop or some such program and save it as a jpeg. The result is not too bad - I can't post it here for copyright reasons; just be aware that Unison point out that the online colour is approximate, and of course it will depend on your PC's colour card and monitor.

Rüstem Ersöz

“Still Life with Pomegranates” © Rüstem Ersöz

Name: Rüstem Ersöz

URL: http://rustemersoz.wordpress.com/

“Portrait of the Artist” © Rüstem Ersöz

Bio: Most of the artist featured on this blog tend to be from the USA or from Western Europe. There are a few – a very few - from the Far East, Asia, or Australia and New Zealand. Up to recently the very fine artist Javad Soleimanpour was the sole representative of Turkey, but I am now pleased to be able to add another artist from Turkey to the blog. Rüstem Ersöz was born in 1962 in Eskişehir. As a child, he moved about in different cities in Turkey because of his father’s work. Rüstem attended military college, and after graduation was posted to various locations in Turkey and abroad. He maintained his early interest in art, painting as a pastime during his army career. When he retired seven years ago with the rank of colonel, he decided to concentrate on pastel and take it to a new level. Javad Soleimanpour was a great influence, and Rüstem  took  classes with him to hone his skills. He has participated in several exhibitions mostly in İstanbul, where he still lives with his wife and two sons.

Medium: Pastel – mostly Rembrandt.

Subjects: Portraits; still life; landscape. It is interesting that like Javad Soleimanpour, Rüstem Ersöz tries his hand, very successfully, at a number of genres.

Style: Representational.

Navigation: Website is in Turkish but the important bits have an English tag, e.g. Eserleri - Artworks
Gallery: Eserleri - Artworks

Image View: Thumbnails enlarge in a viewer, where the enlargements may be viewed serially; they may not be saved. Still Life with Pomegranates is 24.5 x 39.5 cm.

Demo: No

Blog: Website is in blog format.

Mâkhi Xenakis

“Grand Triptyque aux 3 vides n°1.” © Mâkhi Xenakis

Name:  Mâkhi Xenakis

URL:  http://www.makhi-xenakis.com/

Bio: Mâkhi Xenakis, daughter of Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, was born in Paris in 1956, where she lives and works. Drawing has always been part of her life. She studied architecture with Paul Virilio and create sets and costumes for theater, especially with Claude Regy. In 1987, she moved to New York to paint until 1989. There she had a damascene meeting with Louise Bourgeois. In 1998, she published a book with her, Louise Bourgeois, the blind leading the blind, published by Actes Sud. In 1999, she had her first sculpture exhibition along with the book Parfois seule (Actes Sud). In 2001, she exhibited her drawings and sculptures and published Laisser venir les fantômes (Actes Sud). In 2004, invited to exhibit sculptures at the Salpêtrière, she discovered in the public archives the hell experienced by thousands of women incarcerated there since Louis XIV and published Les folles d’enfer de la Salpêtrière that presented a parallel set of 260 sculptures in the Salpêtrière chapel. 

(The Salpêtrière was originally a gunpowder factory ("saltpetre or saltpeter" being a constituent of gunpowder), but in 1656, Louis XIV had a hospital built a on the site, founding the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. This became a dumping ground for the poor of Paris, serving as a prison for prostitutes, and a holding place for the mentally disabled, criminally insane, epileptics, and the poor; it was also notable for its population of rats. By the eve of the 1789 Revolution, it had become the world's largest hospital, with a capacity of 10,000 patients plus 300 prisoners, mainly prostitutes. From La Salpêtrière they were paired with convicts and forcibly expatriated to New France (Louisiana). This was the fate of Manon Lescaut—immortalized in the novel of Abbé Prévost and by the opera of Puccini.)

In 2010, she chaired a film festival on ceramics and glass at Montpellier.  In 2012, an exhibition from the archives of her father Iannis Xenakis, is planned, on the theme: "the dawn of work" in MUBa of Tourcoing. 

Xenakis’ work is in private and public collections, including those of FNAC, the Centre Pompidou, the National Sèvres Factory, the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris and Bibliothèque municipale of Lyon, Musée Zadkine, Artothèque, and the Musée des beaux-arts de Brest.

Xenakis has been exhibiting since 1993.

Medium: Pastel. Oil, Acrylic, Sculpture

Subjects: Organic, but scarcely representational.

Style: Not easily categorized. See for yourself!
Navigation: All links remain available at side of page.

Gallery: Œuvres – Peintures – Dessins ; subgalleries too numerous to list.

Image View:  Thumbnail images may be enlarged and may be saved. There is a useful “retour” button supplied. Grand Triptyque is 974 x 350 ; 120 KB