The Lake Country Pastel Society had the good fortune to have Barbara Jaenicke in the Twin Cities for a 3 day workshop, July 31st, Aug. 1st and 2nd. The workshop was held at the Banfill Locke Art Center in Fridley. The workshop was full with 20 participants, 13 were from our membership and the other 7 were from around the cities and as far away as Chicago. It was a very successful experience for everyone. We enjoyed the workshop and Barbara sold all five of her paintings at the end of the last workshop day. She had brought three smaller pastels, and her two beautiful demos were also part of her sales.

She introduced us to her method of seeing 5 large abstract shapes in a landscape. We did a simple drawing of that and used nu-pastels to apply for a very colorful underpainting. We then applied rubbing alcohol and spread this throughout the underpainting with a bristle brush. The application of the soft pastels over this, allowed for the beauty and richness of the color and light to come through from the underpainting. The results were fascinating and we all walked away with great inspiration to continue our process of experimentation. The last day was a good exercise in minimal stroke experience. She had us do 4 studies of apples with only 20 strokes. Then, we moved on to 4 smaller landscape studies with only 75 strokes. It was both challenging and rewarding to take this exercise into practice.