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Pastels on the Plaza 2017 – Arcata

Pastels on the Plaza is my favorite of Arcata’s yearly events, and this year was above average. The weather was pleasant, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the event, the music, and the farmer’s market.

This was my tenth year doing the event, and as always, I was doing a square for the best landscape designer on the north coast, Genevieve Schmidt.

I like to use the event as an excuse to try out new ideas and tools. For several years now, I’ve been wanting to try something more impressionist, and this year, I finally just dove in and went for it. I ditched my usual tame color palette and my small blending tools in favor of using every color in the box, and a full size, 8″ bench brush as my paint brush. My mom also drove half way across the state to help me out and was instrumental every step of the way, not least by doing all of my lettering so I could focus on other things.

I didn’t push things in the foreground quite as much as I had intended because the navy and purple pastels were a bit too drab and crumbly.

When a business donates to Northcoast Children’s Services, the get either a 3×3′ square or 3×6′ (usually actually 3×5′) landscape. I really wanted to do something in a portrait orientation, so I moved the text area from the bottom to the sides, and I think it worked out well. I continued the black border a bit at top and bottom, which really framed it and took it out of the fray.

Leah Vaughn did the square next to me for Holly Yashi jewelry. I love how it came out. It manages to have a strong subject in the masterfully done hummingbird, and also fade smoothly into a whole different kind of design around the edges. The grey background really left a lot of open color palette for the rest, and probably saved a lot of frustration transitioning between foreground and background.

Stencils seemed to be the innovation of the day all around the square. Getting perspective and spacing to look right can be really hard in this format, with the big horizontal space and ever changing lighting. I don’t think Casey Vaughn’s perforated paper method worked out as planned, but luckily, he’s got enough lettering skills to freehand it anyway. He was working on behalf of Pizza Gago, a local woodfired pizza maker.

Due to some scheduling conflicts, I didn’t get to do my usual afternoon walkaround to see all the finished squares, so this year, we’ll go with more of a look at things in progress.

This guy was doing a fun square using a small brush and spray bottle. It’s a technique that didn’t work out for me when I tried it, but maybe I’ll have to revisit it. It seems like it helps to fill in the crevices and make solid color areas, which I could have used to get my black areas darker.

Cafe Mokka is a great little local coffee shop with hot tubs and saunas. Their artist did an impressive job of translating an iconic design, and getting an extremely smooth, crisp look on the concrete, which may not come through in the picture because it was in the dappled shade of tree branches.

I didn’t get to see the artist working on this piece for the Siren’s Song Tavern, but I think they must have perfected some kind of template technique.

This lady really had her system worked out, with her muffin pan mortar and pestle, and Yuban water. They don’t really make tool sets for sidewalk pastel, so we have to come up with our own.

Mike Craghead did another big black and white of an awesome locomotive with Buster Keaton.

Though I must admit I mistook it for Bill Nye.

The Alibi has a great pastel every year. Their artist has an impressive ability to get their logo perfect with just a picture, a fistful of bushes, and a ruler.

One last shot for a bit of context:

Kinetic Sculpture Race 2017 Arcata

Despite the rainiest winter in my memory, the 2017 Kinetic Sculpture Race kicked off in Arcata on a calm, dry morning.

This big red dragon was the most ambitious sculpture I saw this year.

This giant orange rooster had a ton of followers.

Alchemy construction built something with stained glass windows on top.

This kinetic VW racer fit right in with its surroundings.

This Soul Train picture doesn’t do the sculpture justice. It was disco ball shiny and metallic.

Santa with an airhorn.

The individual racers really stepped up this year.

Safe Ceramic Frying Pan Coating

After a quick search for a safe ceramic frying pan coating turned into days of research and frustration, I decided that it was time to just put up an article with my findings and keep it updated to save you, and myself, the trouble of starting over from square one the next time a pan wears out.

There have been acronyms and trademarks aplenty in this search, and unfortunately, they are more often used to obscure the truth than to enlighten. Let’s see if we can peel back the obfuscation like old Teflon and get to some truth. Our goals here are to find a frying pan coating that doesn’t release anything notably unhealthy into our food or air, does a good job of cooking food, and doesn’t wear out quickly, more or less in that order.

PTFE

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, Teflon. For preventing food from sticking, it can’t be beat. The problem arises when it gets hot. Teflon is a fluorocarbon thermoplastic polymer made of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which, above 392 °F, begins to releases all manner of harmful acronyms. When the temperature gets above 500 °F, it starts to really come apart to a point where the fumes alone can be lethal to birds and both acutely and chronically harmful to you. These temperatures aren’t even all that hot when it comes to cooking. Keep in mind that we aren’t talking about the average temperature of your food, but the high temperature of the surface of your pan. This is well below the smoke point of many cooking oils, so this could be occurring before the point where you’ve even burnt your food.

If you’re willing to risk low level acronym exposure, and are willing to have a frying pan that you use only for sticky low temperature foods, the best nonstick pan I’ve found is the ScanPan. They’ve done their best to minimize problems from scratching and overheating, but it is still made of PTFE.

Second guess yourself

When shopping through sites like amazon, keep in mind that the sellers and reviewers there are generally not the original manufacturers. This is important from a litigation perspective, since they can mislead you about the actual content of the product, and the manufacturer is unlikely to jump in to enlighten you that the product is actually not as good as a third party advertised.

While all of the other acronyms you will run into while looking into nonstick pans are likely real things of real concern, they are generally things that PTFE degrades to when heated, so stay focused. Don’t assume a pan is safe until you’ve been to the manufacturer website and seen them make the claim that it is PTFE free. The ScanPan above is a great example. To read the amazon sales page and reviews, you would think it’s PTFE free, but check their own website and you see that it is coated with “a specially formulated PTFE that works in conjunction with SCANPAN’s patented ceramic titanium surface technology. Details are proprietary to SCANPAN.”

Something else to note from the above quote is that we see the terms PTFE and ceramic thrown around in the same coating. Ceramic doesn’t mean safe. Ceramic doesn’t mean PTFE free. A ceramic is any nonmetallic solid that remains hard when heated, which is a term so vague that you could apply it to just about any frying pan coating. Conversely, nonstick doesn’t mean Teflon, it just means that things don’t stick to it. What the base pan is made of rarely matters beyond heat conduction or compatibility with induction cooktops. Aluminum is standard. I’ve yet to find a stainless, copper, or titanium nonstick pan that is convincingly non-PTFE, though there are some from Chinese companies with poorly documented claims of safe ceramic coatings.

Once you think you’ve found the pan of your dreams, please, take another moment to think about what assumptions you may be making. Go to the manufacturer’s website. Find where it’s made. Make sure they’ve explicitly stated whatever it is that you find important in their product.

Safe Ceramic Nonstick

Lets look at those frying pan coatings that go out of their way to advertise themselves as safe ceramic and PTFE free. So far I’ve found four ceramic coatings that are used by a variety of brands. They are Thermolon, Ecolon, Greblon, and Stonetec. These are all trademarks for various proprietary processes. They won’t tell us what’s in them, but they assure us they’re safe ceramic. You can click the category headers below to see a selection of the better frying pans made with each coating.

Ecolon

Ecolon is a ceramic-glass reinforced Nylon 6 coating applied with a sol-gel process. Glass reinforced nylon 6 is sometimes used for flame resistance. I wouldn’t say that nylon is especially scary as plastics go. Your toothbrush is probably made of it. It’s got good abrasion resistance, and doesn’t seem to be made with anything especially nasty. It does release hydrogen cyanide when burned, which, while deadly, is more of an acute risk than chronic. I’m still not sure I’m on board with cooking in a nylon frying pan.

It sure makes for a nice looking pan though. Yes, it’s faceted, inside and out. This is the NeoFlam Carat, lined with Greblon ceramic. It states on the manufacturer website that it doesn’t contain PTFE, which is great so long as you don’t mind cooking in nylon. Made in Korea.

Thermolon

The people who make the Thermolon coating took to the web to combat some misinformation about their coating composition and stated that, “Thermolon has an elemental composition of oxygen(O), silicon(Si), carbon(C), aluminum(Al) and titanium(Ti). ” If that is truly all that is in it, then it should be pretty safe. Ceramic could still conceivably be unsafe within that boundary, but not likely. Thermolon also has a pdf that goes to great lengths to tell us very little about their coating, but does confirm that it is PTFE free, and a list of some test results, though they don’t specify which of their many formulations was tested. Their website says all of the Thermolon coatings are PTFE-free.

The GreenPan line seems to be the most popular of the Thermolon coated pans. They’ve got a really nice looking pan made for Sur La Table that is 18/10 stainless with an aluminum core for even heating, and the newest Thermolon formulation, a diamond impregnated PTFE-free ceramic coating. They haven’t updated their documentation for the diamond coating, but I have found info on how diamond can be added to such a coating, so it’s credible. Here’s their video sales pitch. Made in China.

Stonetec

WaxonWare has developed a coating they’re calling Stonetec. Their site says it’s PTFE free, and made “overseas”, so assume your least favorite nation of origin. The above pan has a Stonetec coated aluminum core. I’m posting it because it’s a reasonably major brand stating clearly that it’s PTFE free, but they aren’t giving us much more to go on.

Greblon

I’ve gone through my share of Greblon pans over the years, having owned 5 Green Earth frying pans. They wear out eventually, and now that I’m looking at things with eyes hardened by skepticism and betrayal, I notice that the Ozeri Green Earth website is terrible, and it’s just secondary sellers making claims about the composition of these Chinese made pans. Looking into the Greblon coating specifically, I see that there are six different Greblon formulations, four of which have PTFE. I can’t find much info on what is in the two non-PTFE formulations, so at this point we still know slightly more than nothing about them.

I’ve noticed a subset of Greblon pans that pretend they are made of granite. So far, every one I’ve looked into is just speckled PTFE Greblon, labeled as things like STONEHENGE.

At this point, I can’t even recommend a Greblon pan. I’m only finding one pan that specifies that it uses one of the non-PTFE formulations, and It’s just a claim by the amazon seller. I can’t find any sign of it on the parent company’s site. They appear to be sold by a German company, but made in China. Until we as consumers demand some transparency and accountability, sellers will continue to find deception more profitable than telling us what’s in their assuredly safe ceramic coatings.

Cast Iron

After reading about all these supposedly safe ceramic nonstick coatings, you’re probably about ready to try your hand at cast iron seasoning. Reading up on the subject left we with the impression that it is more superstition than science. My question here was the same as for finding a safe ceramic coating, what is the seasoned coating made of, and how safe is it? After reading several forums on the same question, and the wikipedia article, I’d say the answer is: We don’t know, but it’s probably a lacquer, soap, or plastic by the time it’s done polymerizing. Sure, that’s better than PTFE or hydrogen cyanide, but it’s also a very fragile coating, and you’re likely to end up eating it in quantity.

Add to that, the iron from the pan ends up in the food in surprisingly massive quantities. That’s great if you’re anemic, but do a bit of research and you’ll find excessive iron buildup in the body being blamed for all sorts of problems in older men and post-menopausal women, from inflammation, to blood thickening/clotting, to accelerated aging from the free-radicals. Personally, I get more than I should already from meat and green vegetables.

Hard Anodized Coatings

One other coating of interest is hardcoat. A ManPan, from Lloyd’s Pans. PTFE free, oven safe, heat safe to 700°F, metal utensils encouraged, and made in the USA. They state all of this clearly on the manufacturer’s website. The pan is coated with hard anodized aluminum.

Aluminum gets a bit of a bad rap in the alternative health communities, but that doesn’t make sense to me. Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element on earth at 8.3% by mass, and it’s concentrated in the crust (where we live). We’ve evolved in a high aluminum environment, and it’s excreted by our kidneys. People eat aluminum hydroxide as an antacid. It’s in baking powder, beverage cans, and aluminum foil. Most of the pans above are made of aluminum under those coatings. Current guidelines say that you would need to eat something like 3 grams of aluminum a day to exceed your body’s ability to excrete it and have notable toxicity. The Alzheimer’s scare seems to have more to do with a breakdown in the brain’s cleaning system than with aluminum itself.

The hard anodized aluminum coating on the ManPan should be around the hardness of the hardest steels, and stable enough to not notably come off while cooking. I’ve been considering trying one, but I’m a bit concerned about their topcoat. They don’t say what’s in it. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s something similar to Tufram. I don’t know what’s in that either, except that it’s a topcoat for aluminum with the properties they describe, and is FDA approved for use in food processing and cooking.

Stainless Steel

Stainless gets good marks for safety. I’ve been using a good 18/10 stainless for my other pots for many years without complaint. Stainless doesn’t heat evenly, so an aluminum core is a big plus and also cuts down the weight. Sticking can be a problem. The general consensus is that you should preheat the pan on low heat, and then expect the food to stick a bit and then release when things get going. These pans are chemically durable, so cook what you want in them, but be careful not to scratch them up with utensils or cleaning. I’m not convinced that mirror finish is a plus, but scratches definitely hurt functionality.

This one from Cook’s standard looks like a good combination of features and price.

I wish I could claim to have found a sure thing, safe ceramic coating after all of this. The Thermolon probably has the best claim at this point of being a safe ceramic. I’ve already updated the post to reflect a couple new additions, and I’ll continue to update this post as new products arrive. If you’ve got information that you think would contribute to the post or readers in search of a better pan, please comment below. I’ll be moderating the comments to keep things productive and will add to the post as needed.

Pastels on the plaza 2016 Arcata

I’ve never understood why they pick the first week in October for Pastels on the Plaza. We inevitably have our first rain that week. While I’m sure some bureaucrat somewhere thought this would be a good way to make sure all of that unsightly artwork didn’t stick around, it also makes for a tense morning wondering if if we’re going to spend the whole morning sitting in a puddle getting rained on. Even a couple weeks earlier would be much better. This year our first big rain arrived the evening of the event, so if you didn’t show up to the event itself, you missed it.

This year my mom came to help me, which was awesome. I like to get the creative work mostly done before I arrive. There’s enough chaos to think about on the plaza without having to come up with a plan too. We did this sketch of a bug’s eye view of a house sparrow and flowers. I like to have a central subject for some crowd appeal, and come up with a design that works well with both the pastel colors and the rough sidewalk. I was working for Genevieve Schmidt, a local landscaper. This one went quick and easy. Maybe next year I’ll have to challenge myself again.

I was sitting by Leah Vaughn, working for local jewelry company Holly Yashi. I like the fancy flowers and the way the two unblended background colors went together. The colors didn’t come through completely in the photo. The best weather for photographing the event is bright overcast. We had alternating sun and shade all morning, and then sun for the end of the event.

Casey Vaughn did the square for Pizza Gago. Bricks and walls are always a good choice. They work well with the chalk pastel pigments and the roughness of the sidewalk.

Susan Devine did this for the Morris Graves Foundation, and I think it’s her best one yet. All of the companies in the event are donating the money for the square to North Coast Children’s services, and the artists are donating their time. Combine it with live music and a farmer’s market, and you have a great event.

This one for Primal Decor was actually my favorite this year. Their artist always does an exceptional job. It isn’t complete in this picture, but when I came back later, it had been dulled down by the wind. As an artist, sometimes it’s just some little thing that catches my eye. There were other squares that arguably came out better in some overall sense, but there is something in the colors and textures on the face that I found really enviable. I’m going to have to spend a few minutes watching them work one of these years.

This still life for Ramones Bakery also impressed me. She was working wet, with brushes. It’s a common method, but not one I’ve employed unless it’s already raining. I tend to just make mud. It does make for a smooth and vibrant result though. I was most impressed with the gold border on the plate. I think a bit more black in the background would have brought things up a notch.

Erin, Jill, and Cat have been making my list for a while now with their excellent work for Humboldt Area Foundation.

And below are some others that caught my eye this year. You can click any of the pictures in this post to see a larger image.

Kinetic Sculpture Race 2016 – Arcata

Good weather caused a nice turnout for Kinetic Sculpture Race 2016. The race starts in Arcata at noon, every Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and continues through the sand dunes, and down Dead Man’s Drop. Saturday, it’s into the bay in Eureka, and on Sunday, racing to the finish line in Ferndale.

Dragonass. I remember a very similar dragon made of styrofoam from many years ago. I wonder if they used the same base?

Planet 9, sponsored by Pierson’s Building Center. Move over Whirled Peas, there’s a new spinner in town and it’s awesome. The raised clouds casting shadows on the planet were an awesome touch. It spins slowly. I can’t explain the cats.

Lost Coast Brewery steampunk shark. We’ve seen it before, but that’s ok. It’s a crowd pleaser, despite being barely seaworthy.

Atomic Funguys. The Funguys really went all in on the neon this year.

Humdinger. The pilot was playing a trumpet.

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. You can always tell who the race officials are by the number of bribes they have pinned to their shirts. Bringing a table along proved a convenient decision when a bureaucrat showed up with a stack of paperwork.P-awesome. This has to have been the most barked at sculpture in the race.

Lava Rocks. It looks like a comfortable place to sport a cool mohawk.

Pastels on the Plaza 2015 Arcata

Pastels on the Plaza might just be the most weather dependent event Arcata has. There’s nothing like sitting in the middle of the town square from dawn till midday at the edge of winter, drawing with colored powder. This year brought the dreaded wind. Everything is going along fine a few hours in and then a gust plows through the plaza and throws all your highlights across neighboring artwork, eliciting a collective groan.

This year, I did a portrait of Esther for Genevieve Schmidt Landscape. She was a sweet old hen. We had her for many years, and she was old when we got her. I stopped sketching at the point I realized that the wind was taking things away from me faster than I could add them. Despite the wind, or maybe because of it, this was the fastest I’ve completed a pastel. I was 80% done in two hours, and then stuck around a while adding finishing touches.

Each year I try to add some sort of innovation to my process. This year it was a boxing glove on my off hand, so I wouldn’t have sore knuckles from leaning on concrete all morning. It worked great and will be back in my kit next year.

Next to me on one side was Leah Vaughn, doing a large square for Holly Yashi jewelry. This is twice the size of mine, but I think it would feel like four times the work. I’m always impressed when someone finishes one.

To my other side was Casey Vaughn with his epic square for Pizza Gago. The only way Pizza Gago could be any more awesome is if eagles really did deliver their pizzas.

The artist who does the Alibi is consistently excellent. I didn’t get a shot of the finished product because she was still working up near 2:00. She gets bonus points for not compromising her quality through adversity. If you click the picture to zoom in, you will see the toll the weather has taken. I’ve worked under that tree a few times. It’s great on the sunny days. Not so much in the wind or rain.

Humboldt Area Foundation is another one I’ve featured before. This one was signed Cat Erin and Jill. Whatever their division of labor was, the results came out awesome. Like the previous pastel, this is done with water and brushes. Whenever I’ve tried this, I’ve ended up with mud.

Here I was three squares away from Wallace and didn’t even notice or I would have stopped to say hello.

Never one to stay within the lines, Mike Craghead has been doing this near forever, and has consistently been one of the better squares. He was a couple squares down from me. The east side sets the bar high.

And some honorable mentions. There were several I just couldn’t get a good picture of due to crowds and shadows, so if you made an awesome square and it isn’t here, I’m sure that’s why.

Pastels on the Plaza 2013 – Arcata

Pastels on the Plaza was clearly scheduled by either a gambler or someone who doesn’t have to sit on the cement for five hours. Being about a month into the season of varying weather that is the Arcata norm, it is always worrying that it may be windy or rainy (as it has been in the past week) but this time it worked out. This was quite possibly the clearest, calmest day I’ve ever seen in Arcata.

This year, I had my mom in town, so I figured I’d do something tougher than usual under the assumption that she would bail me out if I got in over my head. Above is our end result. I’m pleased with it, though I always feel like I want to go back down there and fix some things after looking at my photos. This event is like running a mile race; long enough to be tiring, but short enough to make you feel like you could have run harder. My concept for the piece was a woman sitting in her window on a winter day, enjoying her garden, with a vase of cut flowers. It was done for local landscaper and garden writer Genevieve Schmidt

Above is an art nouveau peacock done for Holly Yashi by Leah Vaughn.

Below is her husband Casey Vaughn’s work for Plaza. Three of the toughest things to do on the rough sidewalk are smoothness, fine details, and perspective. He managed all three. To quote a passer by, “It’s a chair, but it’s cool”.

You may remember Susan Devine’s dragon on the Trinidad lighthouse from last year. This year she brings us a dreamscape for Barbara Rips:

I think my favorite square of the day was for SuddenLink. It was kind of hard to find since it was behind some giant sandwich board from the neighboring square. The background wasn’t much, but the horse was exceptional.

The neighboring square, for armack, clearly had a fantastic artist and self-important planning. Not only did it take up the entirety of the sidewalk, it also came with a large sandwich board placed in front of the previous square.

The Pacific Builders square was cute:

This elephant looks like a great collaboration between several artists for Gallagher’s Irish Pub. I love how they got the texture on the trunk. If you zoom in, it looks like there is some real dimension there.

This one is from Baroni (and sometimes Y). The artist did a beautiful job on her first solo year.

And this crystallized sea dragon for the Big Blue Cafe was very nice (click for full image)

And finally, a shout out to the Six RIvers Montessori people in the square next to me. Their kids were courteous, personable, and responsible; a better advertisement than any pastel square.

Thank you to the businesses who donated money for the Children’s Center in order to reserve a square, the artists who volunteered their time, everyone who came down to cheer us on, and to whoever put the farmer’s market around us. It was nice to have them there rather than a bunch of traffic. Same time next year.

Pastels on the Plaza 2012

Pastels on the Plaza 2012. What a beautiful morning in Arcata California. Around here, a sunburn is a mark that you have just returned from distant lands with “summer” and “shadows”. Well. believe it or not Arcatians, I got a pretty good sunburn despite two layers of sunscreen. It was worth it. I’m displaying my results (above) large and proud this year. I drew our cat Tamir in our apple tree for Genevieve Schmidt and her awesome gardening blog and landscaping service. It took nearly six hours and measures 3′ x 3′. I’m going to have it printed on canvas and hang it in the living room.

We were surrounded by farmer’s market booths selling fresh local produce, bands, street performers, and crowds of people coming to enjoy the event. I met several old friends I haven’t seen in a decade, and I was in good company. There’s nothing like sitting yourself down in the midst of famous local artists and designers to up the pressure to perform. They set the bar high.

Sitting to one side of me was Leah Vaughn, representing Holly Yashi Jewelry, who have recently opened their own store at their studio. A great place to shop for jewelry or other gifts. I think this image would make an awesome postcard. This pastel was twice the size of mine, and I have no idea how she managed to get it all done by herself. A side note on this for anyone planning on participating in the event; They kicked us out at 3:00, so if you think your concept may take more than seven hours, either rethink it, or get a helper.

Beside her was her husband Casey Vaughn, representing Plaza. This is his first year doing a three foot square, rather than the double size. I think the extra time per foot really allowed him to show off his skills. One of the top looks of the day in my opinion.

To my other side was Susan Devine, representing Barbara Rips with this picture of a dragon on the Trinidad lighthouse. You don’t have to be a business to support the event. North Coast Children’s Services takes charitable donations and we artists donate our time in the name of donors. Everyone wins. And the kids loved this one. Susan was fond of telling them that if they wanted to see the dragon, they had to get to the lighthouse really early in the morning.

This is a great pairing of the Wildlife Care Center with award winning artist Linda Parkinson. These two really are perfectly suited.

Duane Flatmo, larger than life as always, for a guy who is used to paintings that take up whole buildings, this must seem easy. I spoke with him briefly. It seems he is still touring with his giant fire breathing octopus contraption. Go check it out.

This one was the most vibrant and eye catching hing I saw all day, and beautifully done by these two artists. My only criticism is in the decision making process. If you are going to have one pumpkin spilling out of the square, don’t chop off the one next to it at the edge, and if you are going to sign it, either work it in and make it look nice, or keep it outside the bounds of the picture. There is just no way to crop this to make it look right.

I took a break to stretch my legs and go see what Jerry Lee Wallace was up to. I’ve been a fan of his work since before I started doing the event myself. He has the most distinctive style, with his obelisk-like people and vibrant landscapes. This is a portrait of a guy who is “outstanding in his field”. I love the reflections and the shadow going up the tall grass. The donor was Humboldt Family Services.

B&B

And lastly, a couple of honorable mentions. B&B always cracks me up with their poop-to-rainbows attitude. And I like this one by Ca Redwood Co. I don’t get it, but I like it.

Each year, I improvise a few new techniques, with varying success. This year I brought a chunk of neoprene, with the hope that I could use it as a dry paintbrush. It was remarkably effective, and held up unexpectedly well. It allowed me to blend the pastel I had already applied, so I ended up using less, and having less dust. In total I used less than eight pieces of pastel.

Please feel free to post your thoughts or experiences with the event, and I hope to see you all there next year, same place, same time.

Pastels on the Plaza 2011

Pastels on the Plaza time again. My entry above (click for actual size), for the lovely and talented Genevieve Schmidt, a local landscape designer and garden writer. See her work in this month’s Fine Gardening Magazine pages 42-47, as well as this month’s issue of Pacific Horticulture.

We arrived at the Arcata plaza at seven in the morning with a fist full of sidewalk chalk, art ideas in the other hand, and a bag full of new tricks to try out. The weather was ominous. I’d heard rumors flying for a few days about the big storm coming in and estimates for when it would hit.

The weather was great though. It was overcast and warm, though I imagine it will all be washed away in a muddy rainbow in a day or two. Keep in mind that these vary a lot in size, most being either three by three feet or three by six, but I’ve mostly cropped them to the same width, so if the rectangular ones look more detailed, it’s because they are shrunk twice as much. It took me about five hours. These entries are all done by local artists and paid for by donations from local businesses for a local children’s charity. Let’s take a look at this year’s event:

That pastel for Moonstone Grill in the front with the fun shape was done by local author Joan Dunning. I should really take more of these shots, but things are usually so crowded. If you look at the upper left of the image you can see a rare Tibetan Mastiff. I love the red reinterpretation of Starry Night as well.

Above we have the entry by Leah Vaughn for Holly Yashi Jewelry. And below, her husband, graphic designer Casey Vaughn for Tomas jewelry.

This was the first year for Susan Fridley, the artist of the below entry for A to Z Eye Care. Pretty good for a first try!

This one by Primal Decor Body Art Studio is a contender for best of show in my opinion.

I wish I had gotten to watch Renaissance Painting Company work. I’d be interested to see their process.

Duane Flatmo was there of course. It just wouldn’t be the same without him. When I mentioned to him that I had seen his SteamPunk octopus from Burning Man on The Huffington Post, he hunted down a flyer for me, which I’ve put a scan of below his entry below.

The Humboldt Area Foundation had real leaves mixed in with the pastel.

B&B Porta Potties clearly has a healthy sense of humor with their flowers below.

I’ve worked in the rain before. I’ve worked in the wind. I’ve worked in the sun. Each has its own challenges. For anyone out there who may be attempting this kind of thing for the first time, I’ll pass on a few of the things I’ve learned.

You can work wet, or you can work dry, but you really need to decide at the beginning, Trying to spray water on pastel after it is on the ground just kicks up chalk and then beads up and sits. Working wet will get you richer colors, smoother blending, and an almost total inability to deal with mistakes. Once the wet chalk goes somewhere, trying to remove it or alter it just makes mud. Working dry lets you change everything as you go, and gets you finer detail, but builds up dust and sometimes doesn’t adhere well. Below is this year’s entry by Alan Sanborn, a talented watercolor artist. He works wet and with brushes.

Paintbrushes are great if you are working wet and those foam ones work better than expected. If you are working dry, it just flings everything about like a broom. This year I was working dry, and I brought an old towel and cut it up into pieces. It worked much better than a brush for blending crumbs into the sidewalk and mixing colors. We also brought a Dust Buster for when we had chalk buildup and didn’t want to blow it on the neighbors. I highly recommend it.

I prefer to work dry, but sometimes the weather doesn’t make it an option. I work wet when it’s raining or windy. Morning or evening sun casts a lot of shadows, which add to the difficulty of keeping track of perspective while sitting on your work. I end up sitting on wet grass most of the morning, but this is easily solved by getting a good bath mat to sit on with a solid rubber backing. If it’s thick enough, it is also a good alternative to knee-pads when kneeling on cement.

I leave you with a few more honorable mentions:

Update:

Looking around for press coverage I came across this youtube video posted by radmul:

And an image from someone flying over:

Arcata Plaza overhead

Pastels on the Plaza 2010

It’s that time of the year again. The first Saturday in October is one of those few days of the year when I’m glued to the weather channel, hoping to see that little puffy cloud icon that around here means dreary, overcast weather. Photography weather. Pastels on the Plaza weather. Overcast weather seems like such a fixture around here that I don’t know why we bother having a weather forecast at all. The weather guy could just put up a poster with a dreary little cloud and a sign reading, “Partly cloudy”, and go on vacation for a few months. He would probably improve his record. Somehow, that first Saturday in October seems to be an exception. In recent years we’ve found ourselves sitting in a puddle in the rain, trying to draw on the sidewalk with a muddy piece of chalk, or plagued with steep shadows and gusts of wind that erase an hour’s work in an instant. This year, things were terrifyingly different. The weather was perfect. There was no excuse for failure.

I was worried there for a bit, but it all came together pretty well. Click the image above to see my full picture. My entry once again was dedicated to local garden coach and designer Genevieve Schmidt. The event brings together local businesses and local artists on behalf of a north coast children’s charity, which is a big win for everyone involved. Here’s a shot of the east side of the plaza, one of the four sections of pastels:

I noticed a lot of returning artists from past years, though notably absent was Coco Thorpe, veteran of 17 Pastel years, who stopped by to cheer us on, but didn’t deign to coat herself in chalk this year. In her place for Holly Yashi, we once again have Leah Vaughn, with what I think is her best entry yet:

Her husband, graphic designer Casey Vaughn, designed this square for Tomas Jewelry:

Shortly after staking my claim on an empty square, an artist settled into the square beside me. It turns out it was Alan Sanborn, a former watercolor instructor for HSU with a master’s in art and quite a portfolio. At one point I accused the man of using luminous paint. His way with light is enviable. He was doing a farm scene from memory, a reproduction of one of his previous works which can be seen here on his site.

Also returning was a personal favorite of mine, Jerry Lee Wallace, who I missed once again this year. I was too focused on my own work to do a walkaround until later.

This one clearly came from Duane Flatmo, a man of many talents, everything from building fire breathing dragons, to playing the guitar with an eggbeater.

I was especially impressed by the square for The Sushi Spot. They did a flawless job of making the nori, and from concept to execution, it was truly exceptional. Their sushi is awesome as well, a contender for the best in town, and they do take out even when they’re busy, unlike someone else.

Another square that has been consistently good in recent years is The Alibi. If you like your bars dark, your gin and tonic glowing and with a burger on the side, this is the bar for you. I don’t know who the artist was on this one either, but I like their work.

I thought the entry for Kash Boodjeh was cute.

And this one from Humboldt Wildlife Care center was fun. I didn’t even know they made beer out of smashed owls.

Next year, should I participate again. I want to take a break part way through and just spend some time taking pictures of works in progress.

Related Posts:

Pastels on the Plaza 2011

Pastels on the Plaza 2009