Eileen Hentschel Rivoir

What made you choose pastels as a medium? and how long have you been using pastels?

My husband and I downsized our home dramatically in the fall of 2021, so that move, along with arthritis and other woes of growing older, forced me to plow through my closets of craft/art supplies. In the purge I discovered a box of 12 pastels that I had picked up at a yard sale decades before. That New Year’s day, tired of the din of football in our little condo, I pulled out that colorful box, found a lovely youtube video on beginning pastels, painted at my kitchen table on a piece of faded construction paper, and immediately fell in love with the luxurious, tactile comfort of a pastel stick on paper.

What are your favorite subjects to paint?

Absolutely landscapes, particularly central PA skies, woodlands, snow, and rocks..

How has your practice changed over time?

Karen Margulis has been my guru since day one. As a “Silver Level Supporter” of her Patreon page (for a mere $6/mo....isn’t technology wonderful!?), she greets me every morning at 8 am with creativity and inspiration. That said, after a year and a half of online instruction, I was thrilled to finally connect with Susan Nicholas Gephart and then experience her amazing Hameau Artist Retreat last spring and Rhoneymeade in June! Every connection with a “real” in-person artist at meetings, galleries, or fairs, hoists my enthusiasm and knowledge.

What is the best art-related advice you’ve been given?

“Start like a brick layer and finish like a jeweler.”

What do you wish you’d have known from the beginning, but took years to learn?

That no matter how many pastels I buy, there will still be a gazillion others I want, and I still will not be able to find the right shade of green.

Where do you find inspiration?

It is now hard to look at our gorgeous clouds or trees, or fields, and not be inspired.

When is your favorite time of day to create?

As to the actual painting, I tend to begin in late afternoon when whatever was on my plate for the day winds down, work pretty quickly for an hour or so, then leave the work on my little desktop easel. I then return at short moments to think about it, then dab at it over the next couple of days. I do find most of the “creation” is the time investment before I am actually sitting at the easel, finding the photo of the scene that inspires me and figuring out what paper, what underpainting, what layout...

How do you develop your art skills?

I spend way too many hours online watching videos and exploring artist’s websites.

How do you define success as an artist?

For myself, how much serenity the process brings me, and hopefully, the joy the piece brings to someone else (I have an amazing fan club in my three sisters). That said, I gotta admit, the validation from being accepted into three of the four juried shows I submitted to this year felt pretty good.