Judith Carducci Demo at the Charleston Artist's Guild April Meeting

Nationally known painter, Judith Carducci was the featured speaker at tonight's meeting of the Charleston Artist's Guild.
In less than 2 hrs. Judy had completed an impressive portrait of CAG's outgoing President Mr. Cisco Lindsey for the large group that had gathered to see Judy "in action". Not only is she a talented and accomplished artist,she is a genuinely nice person and gifted teacher.

New techniques I learned from her tonight include using a damp sponge to wipe over a first application of pastel to create a loose "under painting" that adds color and tone to the early stages of a painting without filling in the tooth of the support prematurely. This under wash can then be worked upon with softer layers of more intense color. Judy stressed that getting the correct values is more important than the precise colors in the early stages of a work.

She also mentioned that warm and cool designations for colors are relative to how much yellow (warm) or blue (cool) is in the color. So any color can be considered to be either warm or cool depending on the amount of yellow or blue in it.
She stressed the importance of working from a live model and not relying on photos which cause distortions in the final painting.

Throw in a few funny limericks and antidotes from the teachings of master painters such as John Singer Sargent ("A portrait is a painting of someone with something not quite right about the mouth...") and the evening passed much too quickly. She made the process of creating a memorable portrait in an hour and a half seem easy.

I'm inspired to finish work on my latest portrait commission of 6 yr. old Tyler. I think I'll try Judy's under wash technique to add a painterly looseness to the work. I'll post this portrait soon as it's done.