Have you ever wondered if there is a way to combine drawing and painting into one art medium? There is, and it’s called soft pastel! This medium allows you to combine the linear effects of drawing with the brilliant color and depth you can get with oil and acrylic painting! This wonderfully flexible media was used by Impressionist artists to great effects, such as Degas, Mary Cassatt, and many others! Join me this winter at the Adams County Arts Council in Gettysburg, PA to begin or continue your creative journey! Click the link to learn more: https://www.adamsarts.org/portfolio-item/introduction-to-pastel/.
I am back to teaching after several months’ long breaks. This month I will be teaching a beginner class about soft pastels. I will guide you through the basic elements of art such as value, color, and shape to show you how all these elements form the building blocks for success in your own artwork! Class size is limited, register as soon as possible at: https://www.adamsarts.org/classes/. The course starts on: February 23rd, 2022.
About a century ago (well I exaggerate a little); I was a college student studying art at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. I had a brilliant and successful art teacher named Steve, who demonstrated how the practice of art-making and the hatching of new ideas could be brought to life. He taught me many useful things, such as how to keep an art sketchbook pasted with photos of artwork by artists I admired, and how to write about my art in a way that expressed my unique artistic voice. Above all, his most important advice was that I should draw every day. At the time, that task seemed quite difficult. I was always an impatient artist as a student and I often rushed through the drawing stage to hurry up and get to the painting, the “good part.” Now that many years have passed since my graduation from McDaniel, I can truly see the wisdom of his advice.
With hindsight, I realize that he was so right about drawing every day. I no longer rush artwork and I have learned to love drawing, whether it becomes a painting or not. In fact, I have embraced his advice of a daily drawing habit and I have worked on several art challenges for both human portraiture and pet portraits on my Instagram account. One of these challenges is called 100 faces in 100 days, in which I drew a pre-selected photo of a celebrity using only pencil and paper. I did not add in a lot of detail or shading and I limited myself to 45 minutes a day. My latest art challenges were in October, in which I participated in Inktober, and also in December when I challenged myself to draw figures and portraits every day for about 3 weeks, with a pencil or whatever other media I felt drawn to use for the challenge.
The most important takeaway I can say about drawing and getting good at it is that it really helps your art practice to flourish. For instance, once you have the drawing and composition mastered, you can enjoy the next step more fully, whether it’s collage, painting, or some other art form such as graphic design or sculpture. With an accurate drawing, you won’t have to worry about continuing to fix it and can fully embrace your next steps.
In conclusion, I am currently preparing myself to teach a beginner’s drawing course at the Adams County Arts Council in Gettysburg, PA this winter, and the drawing practice has been great practice. To learn more about the course, Classic Drawing, please visit http://www.adamsart.org. I am realizing just how fundamental those drawing techniques of using basic shapes and practicing observing what I see, whether it’s a photo or a real-life object, are so important for accurate drawing. Here are some examples of the drawing exercises and projects I have been working on to prepare for this class. Enjoy! Thanks for reading!
Anatomy of a Shadow with Value Scale, pencil on paper with printed value scale, 2020, Jodie Schmidt. Here is a photo of the textbook I have used in the past to teach my Classic Drawing course, at Frederick Community College, and now at the Adams County Arts Council in Gettysburg, PA. Angela Lansbury, colored pencil on gray paper, 2021, Jodie Schmidt. Emily Dickinson: A Song of Service, pastel on paper, 2021, Jodie Schmidt. Eric Liddell Figure Study, pencil on paper, 2021, Jodie Schmidt. My Broken Home, pastel on paper, 2021, Jodie Schmidt.
This Winter I will be teaching art classes at two different locations! I am honored to join the staff at the Adams County Arts Council in Gettysburg, PA, and will be teaching two art courses there. Beginning in February, I will be offering a beginner’s pastel course that will guide you through the basics of value, shape, and color and teach you to paint in the style of the Impressionists. To learn more about this course, visit https://www.adamsarts.org/classes/.
And in January I will be teaching a beginner’s course in drawing called, Classic Drawing at the Adams County Arts Council. If you have ever wanted to learn how to draw this is the course for you! Or, if you need a refresher in drawing fundamentals such as shading and building objects from simple shapes, this course will help you get back into the groove! Visit this link for more details: https://www.adamsarts.org/classes/.
I will also be teaching the beginner’s pastel course in February at the Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, MD. To register or learn more about this course, visit this link: https://delaplaine.org/instruction/classes-workshops/.
Stay tuned for details about more art courses I will be offering at the Delaplaine Art Center this Spring! These courses include Pastels in Landscapes, and a mixed media course called Drawing Calm. Visit the Delaplaine Art Center website for updates!
Hello Friends, Family, Visitors, and potential Students,
I will be teaching a number of classes at the Delaplaine Art Center starting in February. In February, I will be teaching a Beginning Pastels Course, where I will guide you through basic techniques of pastel, such as broken color, shading, and simple drawing skills, such as working with basic shapes. We will gradually work our way through these skills and learn to work from black and white gray scales to full color with gradient scales, gradients, and color wheels. As a final project, we will copy Monet’s haystacks series in which we will apply broken color techniques and color mixing to replicate the style of the Impressionists. To learn more about this course, or to sign up, please visit https://delaplaine.org/instruction/classes-workshops/drawing/.
I am taking a break from blogging on my Art of Schmidt site until life calms down a little. I’ve been juggling an art show deadline that’s looming and the art hasn’t been coming
Stopping by the Woods, Mixed Media, 2018, Jodie Schmidt.
together, and some health issues. I hope to get back to blogging more frequently after the art show opening, On and Off the Wall at the Artists Gallery in Frederick, MD. I will be joined by many local artists who work in a variety of media. All art will be for sale via silent auction and proceeds will help raise funds for the continuation of the gallery, which is operated exclusively by artists. For now, here are some progress photos of my box entry, Stopping by the Woods. Here is a link to the art show if you want to know more about it:http://www.theartistsgalleryfrederick.com/march-2018-box-show.
In my next post, I hope to show you the completed project, but for now, I am still figuring out how to bring it to a successful conclusion. I was not happy with how the sides of the box turned out, so I am re-doing them from scratch in Photoshop. Next week, I hope to transfer these images to the box and paint the panels in Acrylic. Here are the Photoshop files in progress that will be displayed on the other sides of the box. The box is based on the poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. I love this poem because it is so mysterious. Is he talking about death, life, or the push and pull between responsibilities and dreaming, when he stops to admire the snowy woods, but then decides that he has other things to get back to at the end of the poem when he says he has “miles to go before I sleep”. I think the poem can be open to many interpretations and that’s what makes it interesting. Thanks for stopping by!
It’s that time again for me to get cracking on my box for the annual Box Show which will be displayed at The Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, MD during the month of March. I have been a participant in this show for many years and every time I make artwork for it, I learn something new and literally learn to think “outside the box.” My work will be featured with several other local Frederick Artists and all art will be for sale via silent auction at the gallery. For more details about the art show, click on the following link: http://www.theartistsgalleryfrederick.com/.
Here are a few examples of the boxes I worked on in previous box shows at the Artists’ Gallery in Frederick,
Johnny Cash, Mixed Media, 2014, Jodie Schmidt.
Johnny Cash, Mixed Media, 2014, Jodie Schmidt.
Alice in Wonderland, Mixed Media, 2016, Jodie Schmidt.
Alice in Wonderland, Mixed Media, 2016, Jodie Schmidt.
Genesis, Mixed Media, 2015, Jodie Schmidt.
Genesis, Mixed Media, 2015, Jodie Schmidt.
Genesis, Mixed Media, 2015, Jodie Schmidt.
Genesis, Mixed Media, 2015, Jodie Schmidt.
Md. The themes for the boxes range from The Chronicles of Narnia, Johnny Cash, Alice in Wonderland and this year I will be illustrating Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. I will post additional photos of this year’s box as soon as I start making more progress on it. I hope to have the sketches for the box transferred to it by this weekend so I can start painting the box with acrylic paint. Thanks for stopping by!
Art of Schmidt 