Painting Palekh in Pennsylvania with Paul

Hello Friends,

Okay, the alliteration is a bit goofy but I put it in anyway! Our summer schedule has been crazy. We have been working lots of long hours to prepare our lessons for the new Heritage Education Program, continuing to teach our weekly classes and preparing for our seminars. Our studio is really hopping with activity and we are so thrilled with the artistic energy that we are creating.

This weekend we had the first of our three summer seminars. Our seminars are not long, extended seminars that span several days....our market could not absorb that. Our seminars include a three hour Friday night painting session and an 8 hour session on Saturday. The day and a half seminar is perfect for our students and our market. It provides a concentrated period of study but allows our students to have limited time away from work and family.

Our current weekend seminar was based on the Palekh painting style that I studied with David Jansen in May. I took the class from David because I wanted to learn the techniques that are associated with Palekh painting. While I was sitting in the class I realized that this painting style would translate beautifully to one of our condensed weekend seminars. It was really perfect because the style was new, the techniques were not too difficult and the finished painting would be beautiful. I decided that I would not do the lesson on the small Santa surface that David used so I resized the design and taught it on a sled that our woodman had already made for our studio. The upside of the resizing was that some of the tiny details were bigger! When we painted the Palekh at David's seminar we used a magnifying glass for the small details. Our resizing avoided that need.

Anyhow, the seminar was such a wonderful experience. We had 13 students in the seminar which was a nice size for our studio. I had a goal of completely finishing the painting during the seminar so that meant that I had to be a drill sergeant! No slackers allowed! I told the students to strap in for the ride and for the next two days we worked very hard. The students rose to the challenge and they all have a gorgeous piece of Russian Folk art to display in their home. Following is some pictures from the seminar. I am so proud of all of the students and truly had a wonderful time. Also...a special thank you to David for designing such a wonderful piece.



Nancy is building the snow in layers. Her final painting is gorgeous.





Nadine is adding a wonderful border to her painting. She decided to do the painting on a round plate with a scalloped edge. Her painting turned out great. I hope to post about it after it is varnished. Nadine always thinks outside of the box.

Cathy and Betty multi task as they complete an intermediate step on the painting. Cathy loved this painting and was excited to learn the style. We will often sit as students in each other's seminars. I have to tell you that she was a very good student but she gave the teacher a very bad time! HAHA.

Here I am doing the "teacher thing" as I help Nancy refine her Father Frost face.

This is a picture of some of the class...unfortunately a few students had to leave early and missed the class photo. You can tell by their smiling faces that they were fulfilled by the seminar. I am so proud of everyone. Thank you students!

Sincerely,

Paul