March 2016 33OVER 60 ART COMPETITION
Elizabeth Kenyon
Age 68 • Phoenix, Arizona • lizkenyon.com
I worked as a commercial designer and
illustrator for more than 20 years, owning
a design studio as well as working under
contract as an illustrator for companies such
as HarperCollins, Post Cereals and Walt
Disney Studios. During the recession of the
1990s, I was compelled to expand my free-
lance career. h e commercial art i eld was in
a downward spiral, the computer was about to change everything,
and my students were more interested in grai ti and tattoos than
advertising. My job had become challenging and stressful.
h ings took a dif erent turn in 2000 when I fell in love
with soft pastel. I was experiencing a whole new world of self-
expression and personal success. My enthusiasm for the medium
produced peer recognition and fuli lling teaching opportunities,
and I haven’t looked back since!
My local pastel group, the Arizona Pastel Artist
Association, has an art challenge in which an object is handed
out and we’re tasked to create a pastel painting incorporating
the object. h is time, the object was a deck of cards. I liked
the spheres in the clubs and wondered if the blueberries would
relate to them. I put them together in the bright sun and noticed
a wonderful contrast of hue and texture. I wanted a limited pal-
ette with cool berries on a warm background and a simple value
plan with plenty of shapes to play with the transparencies of
shadow and light. I fell in love with the blue-greens and purples
next to the darker blues. M.G.
Dan Riley
Age 78 • Bellevue, Washington • danrileyart.com
My father painted bill-
boards back when they
painted billboards. I
wanted to be an artist but
my mother, having married
one during the Depression,
encouraged me to become
an engineer. h roughout
my career I continued drawing in graphite and
charcoal and plunged into art after retiring.
I took a workshop with Rose Frantzen and
one of her lessons on color temperature included
a portrait in three colors: Mars black, titanium
white and transparent oxide red. When she i n-
ished, the painting appeared to have been made
from a full color spectrum. Searching through
my i les for a subject, I came across a picture of
me taken late at night when I’d rather have been
in bed. I thought it’d make a fun self-portrait
using Frantzen’s three colors.
Over the years, I’ve taken old paint-
ings and re-gessoed them. h e texture in the
background comes from sanding the new
gesso layer so ghosts of the old painting show
through. Sel e was painted with a No. 10 bristle
brush using the three-color palette.M.W.
ABOVE: Blueberry Club (pastel on paper, 10x12)ABOVE: Selfi e (oil on linen adhered to a board, 16x12)