She discussed topics including under-painting, surface preparation, texture, and stroke direction. Using large samples of her own work as well as photographs, she showed participants how she incorporates these techniques into her own art. They had the opportunity to watch her work firsthand and learn her tricks of the trade.

Participants emerged from Friedman’s presentation with a wealth of knowledge about pastels as well as the inspiration to try new techniques in their own artistic pursuits.

Aida Cyphers – Beach Path

A Glastonbury native, Aida has embraced art in its myriad forms since her childhood.

While pursuing a career in the retail industry, she became an avid ballroom dancer, participating in the highest level amateur competitions across the East Coast and Canada. She channeled her artistic talent to design her own dance costumes and arrange store displays at work.

In the early 1990’s, her husband persuaded her to explore painting at a workshop at the Fletcher’s Farm School for the Arts and Crafts in Ludlow, Vermont, where she discovered her gift for oil painting.

Aida Cyphers – Winter View

Since then, Aida has immersed herself in the medium, auditing courses at the University of Hartford Art School and participating in Plen-Aire workshops with Beth Ellis in Ogunquit, Maine. She incorporates her love of photography into her paintings by using many of her own photographs as references. Her style reflects her deep appreciation for nature.

Aida’s work has been featured at various galleries and art shows, including the Weston Inn in Weston, Vermont, the Hunter Lea Gallery in Ludlow, Vermont, and the On the Green show in Glastonbury.

At the Glastonbury Art Guild, she has studied with Katherine Simmons, a well-known local artist. She volunteers enthusiastically for the Art Guild Board, where she currently acts as Building and Grounds Chair.

Aida Cyphers – Summer Stream

The Glastonbury Art Guild will be participating in Glastonbury’s town-wide tag sale as a fun event and fund-raiser.  This is a call for your usable but unwanted art supplies!  Donate to the Everything Goes Sale and help the Art Guild have its first big tag sale.We will be selling brushes, paints, pastels, pencils, paper, canvases, frames, easels, tablets, drawing boards, pottery, ceramic, woodworking, jewelry tools, etc. All items must be in ready-to-use condition.

Drop off your usable art supplies at 1396 Hebron Avenue on Tuesdays and Thursday from 10 am to 3 pm.  To volunteer to help, contact Jane Fox at info@glastonburyartguild.org or Joe Courchaine at joseph.courchaine@gmail.com.

Glastonbury Art Guild continues its “Got Art?” series with pastelist Laurel Friedmann.

Laurel is a member of the Pastel Society of America and a signature member of the Connecticut Pastel Society. Her works combine the intimacy of drawing with a painter’s lover of color. She will present us with a variety of under-painting techniques and painting surfaces in her demonstration with pastels.

Laurel Friedmann’s finely rendered paintings exhibit her passion for drawing the figure combined with her love of color.  Drawn to the intimacy of drawing the figure and portraying people going about their daily lives, scenes of people at work is a favorite subject matter.

Join us for this informative presentation on April 12, 2012, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Welles Turner Memorial Library, 2407 Main St., Glastonbury.

Harry white – Peek-a-Boo Moon

At age twenty-six, Harry White determined that he wanted to develop his own unique form of expression and so he developed “fleurage”, the name he gave his collages made primarily with flower petals and plant parts.

Harry presses his materials between sheets of facial tissue placed in large telephone books. They dry according to the nature of the plant material and the climatic conditions. When dry, they are categorized by type and color and stored in horizontal paper files.

He assembles his selection of petals and leaves and cut and adhere them to an archival surface using a glue formulated to bind and preserve antique and rare books. He applies the glue with a brush, utilizing a glass palate for a working surface. The glue is water soluble when working and permanent when dry.

Harry White – Moon Shadow Mountain

For over thirty years he has developed numerous cumulative techniques to achieve different forms of expression including landscapes, portraits and abstractions. Harry believes that practice, experimentation and mistakes are the best teachers.

Harry says that it is essential for him to be at one with his medium from the ground up and so gardening in all of its aspects is focal in his life. His goal is to be able to give truth back to the world through his art, a truth that perceives motion, change, pattern and eventually an evolution.

Harry’s art and his garden were recently featured in, The Inspired Garden: Twenty-four Artists Share Their Vision (DownEast Books 2009), providing an exciting lesson on how artistic principles underlay garden design just as much as they do sculpture, painting, mosaic, or other arts.

Harry White – Reaching for the Moon

Harry’s garden illustrates his interpretative concepts of motion and change to beautify and create harmony and resonance with the natural world. With an eye for composition, texture, and color, he breaks traditional garden “rules”.  His artistic expression in the garden is a natural extension of his artistic medium.  Hailed by Picasso’s first agent in the U.S. as “one of the few artists of the 20^th century to create a new art form, “fleurage”, which the Book of Knowledge credits him with creating in 1983.

Harry has exhibited extensively throughout New England, New York and Washington, D.C. He has been featured in Smithsonian, Yankee, Horticulture and American Horticulturist magazines and in dozens of newspapers and on local television.

Harry White

www.harrywhitecollage.com

]]> http://glastonburyartguild.org/2012/02/20/harry-white/feed/ 0 http://glastonburyartguild.org/latest-news/ http://glastonburyartguild.org/latest-news/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:08:56 +0000 RachelPianka http://glastonburyartguild.org/?p=1427 http://glastonburyartguild.org/latest-news/feed/ 0 http://glastonburyartguild.org/2012/02/16/join-us-for-an-all-member-meeting-followed-by-our-first-%e2%80%9cgot-art%e2%80%9d-presentation/ http://glastonburyartguild.org/2012/02/16/join-us-for-an-all-member-meeting-followed-by-our-first-%e2%80%9cgot-art%e2%80%9d-presentation/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:58:31 +0000 RachelPianka http://glastonburyartguild.org/?p=1419 The Glastonbury Art Guild’s “Got Art?” symposia is well under way with its second artist, Ralph Acosta. On March 8 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm at Naubuc School, 84 Griswold Street in Glastonbury, Ralph Acosta, an accomplished watercolorist, will share his talents and love of teaching in a presentation about the freedom, transparency, and spontaneity of watercolors, and the technique he has developed.

"Conch", Ralph Acosta Watercolor

Mr. Acosta is a member of the Lyme Art Association, Mystic Art Center, Hudson Valley Art Association and a former member of the Salamagundi Club in New York City. In addition, he is a member of the national Art League in New York and has studied with Edgar Whitney. Ralph is a native New Yorker who now resides in Stonington, CT, where he conducts classes and workshops in his studio, “Stone Eagle.”

Then on April 12 from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Welles Turner Library, Laurel Friedman will share the secrets of pastel underpainting Friedman, a member of the Pastel Society of America, will demonstrate in acrylic, watercolor, alcohol wash and a texture finish on commercial grounds, a difficult technique to achieve. Friedman will explain how these techniques enhance the final work of art.

The “Got Art?” Symposia is part of the Art Guild’s overarching goal of bringing art to the community.  At each event, the artist presents commentary about his/her creative work, provides tips and instruction, displays examples, and/or demonstrates his/her work.  All have established reputations and have been recognized for their expertise as indicated by the awards they received, and the galleries, corporate collections, and institutions that collect and display their work. The programs are usually free but donations are appreciated and accepted at the door.

More “Got Art” Symposiums