I first encountered guest Allison Krajcik when I saw the piece she’d entered in the 2022 Pastel Society of New Hampshire exhibition. I was the Juror of Selection and I remember being blown away by her entry. So I was delighted when Juror of Awards, Alain Picard, chose her pastel, Time To Go, as the Best of Show winner. I completely agreed with Alain when he said, “Great art makes us feel strongly. This painting aches with feelings of coming to the end of something…Krajcik has created a grand and powerful image.”
And so you can imagine how excited I am to have Allison Krajcik as a guest! Following up on the subject of her winning painting, I asked Allison if she would create a post about florals and she suggested that she could talk about colour and “getting that inner glow.” And here we are with that topic for your enjoyment!
Don’t know Allison’s work? Here’s a wee taster!
First, here’s a wee bit about Allison.
Bio for Allison Krajcik
At twelve, Allison Krajcik travelled cross-country with her family to visit many of the national parks which inspired her love of the landscape. This experience, coupled with the advice of a high school art teacher, motivated her to pursue a career in fine art and design. After earning a BFA in design, she worked as a colour consultant in her interior design company. She took advantage of the slower work pace with the COVID shut down and began painting in earnest and has now found a balance between the two! Check out more on Allison’s website.
And now, here’s Allison!
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The combination of working with stained glass for several years after college and creating a perennial garden at our first home prompted my first floral paintings. I have always been attracted to the luminous and translucent qualities of flowers especially when they are backlit by the sun. I began with watercolour partly because it seemed benign and familiar and I figured it would be an easy medium to get into.
I picked up a few “how to” books and magazines because there was no internet back then and few workshops were available. I really did not know how to handle the medium – you can tell by the lack of colour interaction and luminosity in one of the first watercolour paintings Blazing Poppies.
I began to use the glazing approach with watercolour, laying in primary colours beginning with yellows, then reds and finally blues. I preferred white or light-coloured flowers because they allowed me to be creative with the colour and not have the local colour drive my decisions.
Turns out certain colours were more challenging! The technique was thoughtful and progressive but I would not describe it as spontaneous in any way, at least not in the way I approached it.
I was in the middle of Floral Still Life with Jars, a painting of white spider mums and ball jars. I wanted to emphasise the beautiful, yellow glow, at their centres while maintaining the cool blue edges of the cast shadow on the surrounding petals. Unfortunately, the flower at the top of the painting was becoming brown and muddy so I let it dry and took a step back to try and figure out what was going on. How was I going to move through the shadow from the yellow centre to the deeper blue edge without it turning green or brown?
I realised I needed a colour to transition in the middle of the two colours. Just like the transition of colours through a rainbow, I would use yellow at the flower’s centre then carefully add red in the middle of the shadow. The red would only mix with the blue and flow toward the outer edge of the cast shadow. I would remember that when all three primary colours overlapped in any way, they would create a neutral or brown. It worked beautifully on the lower flower but now the only problem was how to fix the top muddy bloom!
Fortunately, I did not have to start all over because I had used 300lb Arches watercolour paper and was able to sand down the surface of the upper flower very carefully when the paper was bone dry. The paper was thick enough so I could try again. I used red as the transitional colour between the deep yellow centre and the outer cast shadow edge in blue.
The lessons on how to glaze with this delicate medium using primary colours were invaluable.
They enabled me to push the colour even further as in White Roses in Shadow and Poinsettias. You can see how light and cool the overall colour is in the earlier pieces but in the later work, I understood how to get that glow without the mud!
Moving On To Pastels To Explore Luminosity
At first, I had been in awe of those watercolorists that were purists and left the white of the paper as their lightest lights. In my mind I had come to believe it was cheating to use white paint to “fix” a painting. However, over time the tiptoeing around the white of the page created a tentativeness that became tedious and I grew tired of such a controlled approach to painting. This was the motivation to explore pastels, a medium that seemed less fragile and more expressive.
I could build on all I had learned about working wet into wet with watercolour by creating washes with pastel and water or alcohol.
Pastel also offered the ability to literally lay one colour on top of another without blending which intensified the interaction of colours. This sparked the idea to create a warm underpainting of pastel washes with layers of cooler colours over them.
These paintings began with UART paper and an underpainting with a pastel wash with alcohol. The peonies were done from several plein air studies of peonies from my perennial garden.
I learned most of what I know about creating and maintaining a perennial garden from my mother. Even though our gardens did not follow the shape and form of the formal English gardens she had known growing up outside of London, we would strive to coordinate the colour and timing of the flowers throughout the summer season and of course keep it weeded and watered.
Without hesitation, I would pull out milkweed, pokeberry, or any other plant that was not deemed worthy of a place in a cultivated garden. Just as I had “believed” in the purist approach to watercolour, I had also bought into the idea of a perfect perennial garden.
Although I have maintained a perennial garden in our yard for more than three decades, it was not until recently that I learned of the critical connection between the Monarch Butterfly and Milkweed.
This specific plant is a singular source of food and supports the butterfly’s long journey back to Mexico each year but has become scarce as habitat disappears (and gardeners like me, stomp on it!!). I could not help feeling a bit remorseful about my attitude toward the plant and noticed it more often when walking and hiking.
I remembered as a child, finding milkweed in the nearby field and cracking open the pods in the fall when they were brown and ripe. They revealed the most amazing bundle of silk threads and seeds that lay neatly inside just waiting for small fingers to pinch them! The silk threads would slide between fingers slowly unravelling and the seeds would take flight on the slightest breath of air.
I knew I wanted the blue sky to transition from light to dark in a turquoise to cerulean blue so I covered the UART 400 grit paper with its complement – a burnt orangey-brown pastel alcohol-washed underpainting. I thought that I could let the underpainting show through the blue sky to add excitement to the background. Slanting the tallest plant would create movement and instability which would work toward a windy chaotic scene.
The lower part of the composition was created by randomly blocking in the pod shapes and then cutting in the background to add interest and movement. UART paper is very forgiving and once the background was stained with the wash, I could rework and play with these shapes as much as I wanted. It was very freeing!
In the Poppy paintings Sirens of Summer and Garden Glow, I was striving to leave the background as a textural element without detail and let the poppies float above, the way they do in the garden. The logical approach would be to use a deeply textured paper so I coated a sheet of watercolour paper with white acrylic gesso and let it dry.
I used Blick Professional white gesso. I think it is most commonly used for preparing surfaces for oil painting. I like it because it keeps that bright white under washes. It also preserves the paper so if and when I screw up, it can be washed off and I can start over which is so freeing!
I drew the compositions out with watercolour pencils then wet the entire sheet, blurring the lines. I painted washes with red, yellow, and blue ArtGraf Tailor Chalk into the wet paper to create a warm underpainting. I also used the ArtGraf to draw into the semi-wet paper where the marks can be quite unexpected and will either melt in or remain grainy. I followed that with soft pastels.
Poppies glow intensely when backlit by the sun and yet their petals are as thin and crinkled as tissue paper. I wanted to play up these characteristics and the luminosity of the blooms. I did it in two ways.
First, in comparison to each other, I chose cool coral pinks for the sunlit surfaces of the petals and hot red-oranges of the backlit petals in shade. Secondly, I used a range of blue, grey, and purple tones to show the cool shaded side of the flowers that reflected the sky.
With these next two pieces, I was intrigued by the contrast between the textures of the silk and shells as well as the temperature shift between the soft warm glow that is seen within the silk against the cool slate-coloured shells in the shadows.
The watercolour paper was coated with acrylic gesso, dried, then stained with a warm underpainting. Nu-pastels were used to draw the shapes of the shells and a variety of soft pastels were used to emphasise the glowing silks. The singular strands of silks were added last.
I find milkweed more fascinating with every glance. The wind inflates the silk forming small balloons nestled in the shrinking pod. The pods shrivel and twist and become almost like paper as they dry. They resemble the shape of small birds and their exterior becomes prickly so that as the silk expands it gets caught and unravels to release the seeds.
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Well, I’d say that Allison Krajcik sure knows how to get that inner glow. Those last pieces absolutely glow from within don’t you think?!
We’d LOVE to hear from you so if you have questions for Allison or if you’d like to share your biggest takeaways, then be sure to leave a comment below.
Until next time!
~ Gail
37 thoughts on “Allison Krajcik – Getting That Inner Glow”
Allison Krajcik, Twisting with the Wind Is an amazing painting I was so taken with the lights and strands of such a simple subject.
Barbara Jaenicke’s work, I just love and enjoyed the advice related to abstract painting.
Aaron Schuerr brought back my feelings and thoughts of seeing great works of art that brought me to tears at the Met and other art seen in travels. The feeling is gut wrenching when one first sees the masters …you want to put your eyes there as close as possible so you see the strokes made so long ago and osmose it somehow into your brain! Aaron is a wonderful artist as well.
I so enjoy your art Gail and all your posts! Thank you Sandi
Thank you Sandi for your lovely comments on the different blog posts Sandi. You’ve been a subscriber for so very long and I appreciate you being here!!
Hello Sandi! Thank you so much! I find the humble milkweed anything but and those silk strands are fascinating 🧐
Thank you very much Gail for featuring Allison and her inspiring beautiful work. Allison used watercolor paper and coated with acrylic gesso – how did she get the tooth or grit on watercolor paper ?
Thanks for your question Kamlesh and I will leave Allison to answer that for you!
Hello Kamlesh! The gesso has a texture to it that remains when it dries. If it’s too gritty you can actually sand it down a bit. You can work on top of it with pastel and repeat the process! Hope this is helpful and thanks for asking!
Best,
Allison
Thank you both for such a valuable article for watercolourists and pastelists alike.
So glad to hear you enjoyed it Petrina!
How beautiful. She certainly has mastered light. I found it interesting to see difference in brightness when she changed from Watercolors to pastels.
Yes! Isn’t that interesting Kyle?! love seeing the comparison between her use of the two mediums.
I know it is often said that ‘showing up at the easel’ daily is more important than inherent talent, but here is a breath-takingly talented artist in Allison Krajcik!
As artists our motivation is to seek those elusive moments of magic and Allison appears to be living breathing and painting right in there and present in that world. OK, she no doubt paints every day too 😆
Thank you Gail for introducing her work to me, and thank you to Allison for her generosity in sharing her process and these examples of her really beautiful work.
Mo
Mo, thank you for leaving your thoughtful comment and appreciation for Allison’s work. I’m delighted to have made the introduction!
Hello Mo!! Oh my goodness you are so kind! Thank you so much!! I may not have mentioned that I have also been a plein air painter for 35 years. I started when my kids were small to get me out of the house and I never stopped. It was one of the major outlets that kept me sane while being a stay-at-home Mom. I do think it is important to draw/paint from life and that doesn’t necessarily mean plein air but can be on a piece of paper at the kitchen table!
Paint On!!
Warm regards,
Allison
Wow!!! Love every painting, but the Milkweed paintings steal the show! Gorgeous work! Thanks for introducing Allison to us!
You are so welcome Ruth. And yeah, those milkweed paintings….WOW!
Thank you Ruth! I have some of the spent stalks in my studio that still have a bit of the silk strands on them! They are still calling to me!
Thanks for this wonderful post, Gail and Allison! The glow is amazing. I loved reading how Allison goes from yellow to red to blue for those very pale petals…something to experiment with for sure. And her milkweeds are gorgeous. I am inspired, thank you both very much!
Yay Wendy! Can’t wait to hear how your experiments go!
Hello Wendy, I am so pleased you are inspired and thank you!! In retrospect, I had forgotten how delicate the layers watercolor can be and hope I can let them shine through more often. I can certainly overwork the pastel at times!!
Thanks again!
Allison
A very interesting and wonderful insight into the deep world of painting with either watercolours or pastels. I have found her watercolours to be absolutely stunning. And the Milkweed, glorious. Will read over many times.
Finding myself at 83 in my 4th year of on-going learning to paint with pastels with many interruptions due to health related issues and this continues to create so called, cross-roads: which way to turn. Then become stuck! So all your lessons and hints/tips will help me to (I hope move on and out of this stuck-phase). Will look to see if you have YouTube tutorials as they are a real springboard – after reading, to watch a fine artist painting is such a great lesson.
Thank you for all you are doing!
Very best wishes,
Cynthia D Ward, Sonoma CA
I’m delighted to hear that Allison’s guest post gave you some insights Cynthia!
I’m sorry to hear about your health issue interruptions but kudos to you for coming back to your art-making. I’m so happy to hear these blog posts are inspiring and helpful. I do have vids on YouTube but embarrassingly haven’t posted anything new in quite a while. There’s a plan afoot to get back to it!
Thank you for your appreciation – words like yours keep me at it!
Thank you Cynthia! It is annoying when we our bodies don’t keep up with our will but I must say you are an inspiration! We all get stuck now and then but as you say, Gail has created such a rich and diverse collection of artists and their work as well as her own accomplished approach that you can always pop in to get inspired.
Paint on!
Best,
Allison
Gail thank you for sharing Allison and her work with us. After studying oils for about 5 years in junior and senior high school, I discovered the joys of watercolor and it was my media of choice for a couple of decades. Wish I could say I ever came close to Allison’s beautifully lit works, but I didn’t. I really appreciated her progress and process information and what she learned from it.
Allison thank you for sharing so much information and I feel I can utilize your information with my new media of choice, soft pastels!
This ranks as one of my favorite blog posts so far!
Whoo hoo Carol Ann!!
And thanks so much for sharing a bit about your own journey through different media.
Thank you so much for your kind words Carol Ann!! That is crazy high praise knowing how much I admire many of the artists that have contributed to this blog! I truly hope the information is helpful. Feel free to break the rules and make pastels your own!!
Thank you again,
Allison
OMG! Her works are FABULOUS! Thanks for introducing me to Allison!
I’m grinning Laura! Thanks for such a blown-away response!!
OMG! THANK YOU!!!
What utterly beautiful paintings! Allison’s mastery of cool and warm colours and depictions of light and shade are amazing! Thank you Gail for inviting Allison to share her work, and thank you Allison for the generous explanations and gorgeous paintings.
You are so welcome Judith. And yes to Allison’s. mastery!
I’m delighted to introduce Allison to a wide audience.
Thanks Judy! It was my pleasure and I appreciate Gail asking me to contribute!!
Warmly,
Allison
Thank you Gail and thank you Allison for taking the time to provide such an in-depth description of your process for each painting and your overall evolution as a painter. I’m curious about the types of pastels you most enjoy besides NuPastels and Schmincke? Also, your process is very thoughtful and planned. I am wondering how long a painting general takes you- from underpainting, planning through to iogning it? Thanks!
Thanks for your questions Lynn. I’ll pass them on to Allison to answer!
Hello Lynn, I invested early on in Schminke pastels and although I have tried some of the newer manufacturers, I still find them to be one of the creamiest (haha not sure that’s a word). I had split a set of the Unison Portrait 72 piece with another artist years ago and have noticed how much I like the muted purples and blues so I have been collecting those. I cannot live without Terry Ludwigs Maggie Price Grays! I bought two complete boxes to have one on the studio table and one for my plein air box!! Now that’s love!! I do get annoyed when I can’t buy individual sticks so I have kind of ruled out certain ones for that reason but the exception is Ludwig because I work with every single one of those.
I have curated the pastels on my studio table so I could clearly see the gaps of color and it was one of the best things I have done. It stopped me from buying sets where I repeated colors and it filled in those gaps (which I am still working toward).
As for how long it takes to complete a painting, I would guestimate a couple of days but I work on many at one time. It keeps the work fresh and I create more work. I often create oil color charts to work from and cover pastels on the table that are not on the chart to creat a limited palette so several pieces can be done from the same set up. Yep you could say I am a bit OCD about the process but I have learned alot!
Thank you again for your kind words and your interest!
Allison
Gail, I woke up this morning with a long and urgent TO DO list and haven’t even had a cup of coffee or any breakfast. I clicked on your website because I have not checked In lately; I have so many important things to catch up on following 2 surgeries in December. And you were (generously) sharing Allison’s art (and instruction). It is nearly 6 PM and I am still here. The rest will have to wait. I can do some of it after dinner (tummy growling accusingly) but I just have to tell you how much I appreciate the introduction to Allison and her work. It took my whole day, but made my day, and I just, now, thought of all those urgent tasks for the first time since I arrived here. I learned so much and am ready to explore pastel washes. I have always thought of pastels as dry and powdery dangers to my damaged lungs but washes will make it more likely that I can use pastels “forever” without feeling guilty or worried about it. They are beautiful – and it is true that the colors will vibrate against one another, even when applied thinly; I will have to experiment. Thank you both. Friends for life. nv
Awwwwww Nancy. I smiled, and chuckled, and felt warmed as read through your lovely response. I do hope you’ll experiment with those washes and come back to tell us that, yes, you are still using pastels.
Hello Nancy, Wow so happy to hear you are excited (haha and distracted from all those To Do’s)!! After doing the blog I have also realized that I would like to see more of the washes shine through so we are on the same page!! I don’t think I mentioned it but I have asthma and use an air filter attached to my easel by Artistair.com. It helps with the fine particals.
Enjoy and paint on!!
Best,
Allison