by Jill Stefani Wagner

  I’m not a real big fan of New Year’s Resolutions. Making a blanket declaration that on January 1st I will immediately START or STOP doing something seems pretty arbitrary...and ripe for failure. But I do believe in having goals: something tangible that I can work toward.   When I owned my advertising agency, January was the time that I diligently made lists of tactics that would help us improve our current client relationships, increase the quality of our creative ideas and bring more interesting work in the door. There was no simple resolution to bring these goals to fruition, it was often a [...]

Part of our jobs as a full-time artists is to get our work out in the world to be seen by art lovers, collectors, galleries and curators. One of the ways to do that is to enter national exhibitions. We decide which shows best suit our style of work, and then we take a chance, send our money and cross our fingers. More often than not, our work is rejected. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of painters will enter any given show and usually only a very small percentage are accepted. It's a lesson in humility and we have to grow thick [...]

  Still a few spots open...Come paint with us! Nora and I are heading off to a two-week workshop in Spain, but you can still sign up to attend our Michigan plein air workshop when we return. Just text me at 734.604.2864. [...]

"From Lands End"    Pastel Landscape Painting    12 inches x 9 inches    See Pricing Saturday at the Plein Air Convention more wonderful presentations and demos, and then we all went out to paint at Lands End and the Legion of Honor Park. More beautiful views to capture! I walked around helping students and snuck the little pastel above at the end of the afternoon. (I think I chose this view because it the reminded me of Italy...)   Saturday night was the closing party...and what a party! The theme was based on San Francisco in the late 60s and hippies and flower children were [...]

"Tuscan View" Pastel Landscape Painting   9 inches x 12 inches     SOLD     I have been traveling the rowdy plein air road and haven't been able to blog for awhile. But I thought I'd tell you a little be bit more about the Plein Air Convention in San Francisco (PACE). After Wednesday night's opening, I had one day to enjoy the demo's of other artists, visit the huge Expo Hall filled with art suppliers and visit with friends. In the afternoon we all went out to Crissy Field to paint together. It was a beautiful location with the Bay [...]

  ANOTHER fantastic Plein Air Convention and Expo (PACE) is in the books! This year we spent a wonderful (but slightly chilly and damp) week in San Francisco. With over 900 students and 80 faculty (including me as pastel demonstrator!) the place was hoppin!! The event opening (above) is hosted by Eric Rhoades and lets us know all of the wonderful demos, lectures, painting trips and parties that lay ahead. As I’ve explained to my friends, there is so much to do, see and hear, it feels like drinking from a fire hose. You can’t possible do it all. So we PACE ourselves and [...]

“Promenade” Pastel Cityscape Painting   9 inches x 112 inches     See Pricing When I do demonstration paintings at my workshops, I rarely finish them to the extent I would in the studio. I’m more interested in teaching my students a new concept or technique than I am in creating a perfect piece of art. And, I don’t want to take up all of their painting time finessing my work. But I do bring in my practice examples of the exact same painting to show them what a finished piece might look like.   The painting above was done with a value under painting [...]

  No words. Take a look at just some of the beautiful pastel paintings from our UArt workshop. I’m such a proud mama!               [...]

  Oh. My. Its been a crazy couple of months. We took a little sun break down south for a couple weeks, I lead a pastel workshop, I worked on new paintings for the upcoming gallery season and practiced for my Pastel Faculty gig at the Plein Air Convention in a week. And of course I’ve made a few visits to my precious newborn grand daughter. Time flies. And it seems with all that going on, I forgot that I have an artblog to write!   I’ll start with the workshop. What a GREAT group of artists I had! Many were repeat students and [...]

“February Light”  pastel 12″ x 18″        See Pricing    The beginning of the year is always exciting: new projects, possibilities, and adventures lay out into the future like a landscape of rolling hills.   I enter competitions, apply to plein air festivals, promote my workshops, arrange commissions, and make travel arrangements. It’s all a little crazy-making and everything is up in the air until I start receiving the responses back from all of the organizations. But, right now I have a pretty good idea of what the year will look like. You can see my schedule below. Please stop by if you are near any [...]

“The New Jersey Home” pastel painting   11 inches x 14 inches    SOLD I was lucky to have quite a few commissions during the last couple months of 2018. They came in so hot and heavy that I didn’t remember to photograph them all. I’ve posted 3 that I did shoot before they left the studio.   Commissions are interesting conundrums. When I agree to take on these assignments, I have to be aware that although the people who come to me undoubtedly like my art work, they want me to create THEIR art work.  Their subject matter, their size, their medium, their [...]

Plein Air Architecture Painting    8 inches x 10 inches    SOLD  There’s a beautiful old pink Victorian house on one of the side streets of my home town. Every time I drive by I say “Dang, I gotta paint that place.” Finally one late summer Saturday morning I did.   While I was painting a really nice woman, the owner of the house, came out to talk to me. She loves her home and was so proud that I thought it was beautiful enough to paint. She made me promise I would show her the finished painting by email. When she saw it, [...]

Morning Treeline  Pastel Plein Air Landscape Painting    8 inches x 16 inches      See Pricing Last October the Great Lakes Pastel Society held its Annual Meeting at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute near Battle Creek, Michigan. My friend Linda Klenczar and I arrived a couple of hours early to paint the beautiful scenery around the lodge. It was raining pretty steadily, but we intrepid artists set up under an overhang and kept on painting!   Afterwards we had a great meeting and time to catch up with friends during lunch. Later we were honored to have Vianna Szabo discuss her pastel work and Sharon Will explain framing techniques.   If you are a pastel [...]

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Every January I make a list of a few goals for myself in the new year. I wouldn’t actually call them New Year’s Resolutions, maybe more like suggestions for the future.  “Improve my art skills” is always at the top of my list. There are many ways to approach that goal: Painting constantly, visiting museums to observe the masters, reading art books on other artists and art techniques, going to figure and portrait classes, watching art videos, etc. But one of the things that always sparks my work is a couple-day workshop with full immersion into another artist’s vision. I’d like [...]

WOW. My socks where blown off last week.   When I opened the email telling me that Plein Air Magazine’s new Plein Air Salon Awards had been chosen, I expected to be texting my a few of my artist buds to congratulate them on being chosen in the competition. But this time I got a surprise. TWO awards for MY paintings. I am soooo honored and grateful to be able to make a career and friends in the art world!   I was especially happy to be recognized for an oil plein air painting. I feel like I am still a bit of a newbie in [...]

"Down Pine Street" Pastel Plein Air Cityscape Painting  9 inches x 12 inchesPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.   It was the last day of Paint Grand Traverse and I was up at dawn to paint Traverse City. It was cloudy with a bit of fog and the sun was just coming up over the bay. I found a sweet street view near downtown which I painted on a board prepared with pastel ground. The random brush strokes create texture and dynamics to an otherwise quiet scene. My wonderful hosts, Debra Van Leen and her husband 'T' [...]

"Elk Rapids" Pastel Plein Air Landscape/Waterscape Painting    12 inches x 16 inches    See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Thursday was Elk Rapids day at Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival and I zeroed in on the bridge at the Kids Pond near the harbor. Of course, at least 10 other artists did too. We all had different views of the scene and very different colors and techniques. It's so interesting to see how other painters process a scene and make it their own.   "On the Bay" Pastel Plein Air Waterscape Painting  8 inches x [...]

"Fountain Point Daze" Pastel Plein Air Architecture Painting  9 inches x 12 inches   See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Midweek Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival held a Quick Paint event at the historic Fountain Point Resort. Little white cottages and boat houses dot the grounds on Lake Leelanau, and the whole place has the comfortable feeling of times gone by. There were 40 professional and 60 emerging artists participating along with hundreds of viewers and guests. I arrived late to find my spot and decided to forgo the water scenes at the crowded lake [...]

"Mawby Horizon" Pastel Plein Air Landscape Painting  20 inches x 16 inches   See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Another day, another beautiful vineyard at the Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival ! The painting above (one of my faves!) was painted at Mawby, a gorgeous winery on Leelanau Penisula. I decided to go big again on this one. First (always!), I did a sketch to get down my view and values. Working on a tan piece of Ampersand Pastelbord , I blocked in a dark purple pastel underpainting which I brushed down with alcohol to [...]

"Chantal Ridge" Pastel Plein Air Landscape Painting  8 inches x 8 inches   SOLDPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Two pastel paintings from the beautiful winery, Chateau Chantal on Mission Peninsula. The vineyards were perched high on a ridge and both bays were visible from their property. Drop dead gorgeous views. The top piece (painted very quickly!) won an Honorable Mention Award at the Small Works Show that night. Considering the amazing artists at this event, I was over the moon!   Two of my close friends came down from Northern Michigan to view the artists paint and [...]