We recently attended the IAPS 2019 Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico. IAPS stands for “International Association of Pastel Societies” and is a gathering of pastel artists from around North America and other countries. IAPS takes place every two years and the IAPS board, led by IAPS President Richard McKinley, and all of the IAPS volunteers work hard to create a marvelous event – there are lots of workshops, demonstrations, a trade show with all of the top pastel manufacturers (including PanPastel) along with plenty of social events. Everything happens in one hotel where many of the attendees & manufacturers stay, so every corner you turn is filled with pastel energy. For more information on IAPS and future conventions (highly recommended) visit their website: iapspastel.org

During the convention there is a three day Trade Show and ever since we first launched PanPastel in 2007 we have exhibited as a manufacturer at IAPS. On our booth, we featured demonstrations by four artists using PanPastel: David Kassan, Loes Botman, Enid Wood & Cheri Ginsburg. Each artist showcased a different aspect of how they use PanPastel. Here are some of the highlights of the demonstrations.

David Kassan

On Saturday morning David Kassan joined us to do a drawing demonstration on the PanPastel booth. A large crowd gathered to watch David in action (including Albert Handell who stayed to watch the entire demonstration). David uses PanPastel Black, with our Sofft Knife No.4 and General Pencils for his drawings. To see more of David’s work and his list of materials, visit: davidkassan.com

Below is a short video (filmed on a phone in the midst of a crowd so forgive the quality) of some moments from David’s demonstration at IAPS.

KASSAN STUDIO VISIT

As David is now based in Albuquerque we got the opportunity to visit his, & Shana Levenson’s, studio. David has been working on a huge project on holocaust survivors. We got to see the large painting – of the 11 survivors – that he is currently working on, it will be unveiled along with his other paintings of the survivors, during September in the “Facing Survival” exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles.
In addition to his paintings he has been interviewing the survivors on video.

Follow David’s posts about this project instagram.com/davidkassan

Loes Botman

Enid Wood

Texas based artist Enid Wood demonstrated on our booth on Friday morning.

Enid regularly teaches with PanPastel, and in fact is teaching a workshop in Round Top, TX in July.
Workshop details: enid-wood-pan-pastel-workshop

Coincidentally Enid had interviewed Loes Botman (above) for the issue of “The Pastel Journal” that was given to all IAPS attendees. So the timing of the article was perfect!

To see more of Enid’s work: enidwood.com

Cheri Ginsburg

Cheri Ginsburg from Iowa demonstrated on Friday afternoon. It was a quiet period during the show, so we filmed a couple of short Facebook live videos, which are shown below.

Several people asked about Cheri’s easel & PanPastel palette set up. Which is similar to the way she sets up her easel and PanPastel colors for plein air painting. Cheri provided a very detailed description of her plein air painting set up for PanPastel on our blog here: plein-air-painting-with-panpastel

To see more of Cheri’s work  cheriginsburg.com

1st short Facebook Live video from Cheri’s demonstration.

View on Facebook

2nd short Facebook Live video includes a view of the trade show room

View on Facebook

Coincidentally (yes, another coincidence!) both Enid Wood and Cheri Ginsburg were featured on the same spread in Southwest Art Magazine (November 2018). There PanPastel paintings are shown in the article.

Other IAPS Highights…

Dawn Emerson

In addition to the demonstrations on our booth, artist Dawn Emerson was busy at IAPS – she taught a two day workshop, using lots of PanPastel Colors during the workshop. Students left her workshop each day totally energized by the new techniques that they had discovered during the workshop with Dawn. It was exciting to meet them. Dawn’s unique approach to materials is featured in her book “Pastel Innovations” .

Unfortunately we didn’t get to attend Dawn’s demonstration, which was scheduled by IAPS, as it took place in a separate larger room, but Christine Bowman, who was creating social media posts for IAPS live from the convention, posted the short video clip below on Instagram of Dawn applying PanPastel during the demonstration.

More info on Dawn’s workshops: dawnemerson.com/workshops-and-classes

IAPS on Instagram

To see more images from the IAPS convention – check out  #IAPS2019 on Instagram

And One More….

Here is a light-hearted short video, by Christine Bowman, of David Kassan with the ever ebullient Pierre Guidetti after he modeled for David’s drawing demonstration on our booth. Included here because David also talks about his drawing process…

Thank you Pierre for posing for David.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at IAPS. It was great to see everyone again. Sending a big “thank you” to David, Loes, Enid & Cheri, for their demonstrations on our booth. Thank you to all of the IAPS team & volunteers who make our life easy by producing a great event (special mention for Red Weber & John Philbin Dolan who took great care of us before and during the convention); and all of the wonderful attendees that we met during the convention and who visited our booth. We’re already looking forward to IAPS 2021!