I was asked to speak and give a demonstration at the Alamo Danville Artists' Society 1401 Danville Blvd., Alamo, on February 14th, 2012.
I had a great time and met some of their wonderful members. I am including their re-cap of the demo from their March 2012 Newsletter:
LAST MONTH’S GUEST ARTIST - WARREN DREHER—PASTEL ARTIST
Our guest artist treated us to a chronological slide show of his work over the past 30 years, most
of it in soft pastel, which he calls "architectural landscapes". Though his pieces are somewhat
abstract, he has a huge respect for realistic depiction, and in fact stressed several times that he is a
firm believer in the importance of drawing on a regular basis. He brought in a number of his pieces
to share first hand: oils, pastels, and rough drawings. Warren admitted that he uses his camera
constantly, wherever he goes, to capture images for possible paintings, and that most of his painting
is done in the studio instead of plein air. What about subject matter? "Well, it's simple" he says, "Just
sky, earth, and stuff in the middle. Or for seascapes, it's sky, water, and stuff in the middle." He told
us that he once had a great apartment in San Francisco, on Russian Hill. But all his painting became
so photo-realistic it bored him to death, so he stopped. Now he combines the abstract, literal, and
the architectural.
This artist uses Canson paper, and tends to work in a circle until every area is accounted for. He
regularly uses fixative all the way through, and with many layers of pastel, especially in the white
areas. He uses a T-square and fixative for his straight lines, and never uses black. He cautioned us
to avoid putting the whole world in each painting, and reminded us that painting is about breaking
our subject down into its simplest parts, until it becomes "a stream of consciousness".
So Warren Dreher, graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, showed about 150 slides,
punctuated by informative suggestions. For instance: "Paint 24 hours a day, even if just mentally.
Draw everything, and keep drawing it. Never let yourself start thinking
that you can only make your art with a certain media, or that each
media "can only do this much". Push it, just like using different
instruments which feel and play differently, but they all still make
music..... very thought-provoking analogy! A good evening for all of
us.
Dreher lectures and conducts painting workshops throughout the
Bay Area and Northern California. You may contact him at:
w.dreher@comcast.net
Submitted by: Cassandra Antkowia
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