Remember playing with chalk on the sidewalk? Well, if you want to see the very opposite of that, head over to the Lake Placid Center for the Arts for a wonderful show of pastel paintings. “A Convergence of Pastel”, featuring the works of a dozen nationally recognized artists, will only be on display until September 18. Local artists featured are Diane Leifheit, Linda Sweeney, Joyce Hanson and Ingrid Van Slyke.

It is everything but soft, fuzzy chalk drawings. There are impeccably detailed still life arrangements, exquisite portraits, landscapes of soft subtle colors as well as brilliant flashes of color, abstracts, florals, more figurative paintings, and plein air work. Having never used pastels myself, that is “real” pastels – pure pigment shaped into chalk-like sticks, I really don’t know how they work. I don’t know how the artists keep from smudging them, or how they blow off the accumulated dust. How they keep straight which color is which when they don’t have any labels or wrappers like our old-fashioned Crayola crayons did. I’d like to know how they get crisp, straight edges and even how they might erase or fix a mistake. I will likely stick to my paint brushes, as I do know how to use them. But this is a show that is well worth going to see – it will change forever your impressions of what can be done with pastels when you see the work of master artists. » Continue Reading.