Our demonstrator was Andrew Anderson-Bell. He did a Pastel Landscape demonstration.
The meeting was held in the Guild Hall, First Congregational Church (middle side door), Sanborn Street, Reading, Wednesday April 9, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
We have some photographs of the event in case you could not make it there in person.
Andrew began his demonstration by showing us his pastel pallet.
His source material is a photograph on his tablet.
He cropped the image and put a grid on the photograph, as shown here.
He drew the same grid on his pastel paper.
He then made a very rough sketch of the painting
using the grid to make it easier to locate the basic shapes.
Andrew started the painting with a hot pink under painting.
The under painting will show through the green and make it vibrant.
Once the under painting was in place, he washed it with rubbing alcohol.
After the alcohol dried, he began putting in the basic shapes.
The painting is developing.
Here is a closeup.
Continuing to develop the painting.
More coverage in the foreground.
At this stage, Andrew is adding the flowers in the foreground.
A closer view of the progress so far.
Pulling the tape off the painting to remove it from the board.
Here is the final painting in a mat.
Learn more about Andrew at his website, https://www.anderson-bellstudio.com/
Native to the New England area, Andrew Anderson-Bell is a representational landscape artist painting in the medium of pastel. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Andrew initially pursued graphic design and photography. While these remain passions to this day, his interest in painting in pastel was sparked by an exhibit he saw 20 years ago. The immediacy of the medium, the vibrancy of the colors and the diversity of mark making inspired him to pursue a career in pastel painting.
Where Andrew lives keeps him in daily contact with the great outdoors, his leading source for artistic inspiration. He is a lifelong summer resident of North Haven Island, Maine. When not there, he lives in Ipswich, a seaside community located on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Much of the subject matter of his pastel paintings depict familiar landscape scenes from North Haven as well as from his exploration of the other islands of Penobscot Bay. Meanwhile, the beaches, horse pastures, farmland and particularly tidal salt marsh estuaries of the north shore are also captured in his landscapes.
Although many of Andrew's pastel paintings are of recognizable locations, he is not concerned with generating an exact reproduction. Instead, he often works in the studio from memory, sketches and/or photographs using an intuitive process to create a heightened sense of place. Working in this fashion allows Andrew to avoid getting bogged down in details while promoting a more imaginative response to handling color and composition. Through his work he conveys nature's incantations: whispers of wind through bows of spruce trees, the lapping of waves against a shoreline, the distant rumble of thunder. To capture the feel and temperature of weather and nature's change in mood, he often examines the metamorphosis of daylight to dusk or calm to approaching storm. He portrays the spectrum of nature from the graceful dance of field grass to the power and fury of surf. His paintings offer the viewer the indulgence of a meditative space to contemplate the grandeur of nature and reinforce the notion that even the most solitary and tranquil moments have significance.