By Allison Malafronte
Margaret Dyer, First Day at the Beach, pastel, 18 x 24.
The figure has been Margaret Dyer’s passion since her first life-drawing class at the Atlanta College of Art in 1970. “At that moment, I found something I loved—the challenge of drawing the living, breathing, continuously moving landscape of the human body,” she says. Ten years after that class, Dyer discovered her preferred medium when she first saw the work of artist Kate Fetterolf and was amazed at how beautiful pastel paintings could be. Dyer studied with Fetterolf weekly for five years.
Margaret Dyer, Laundry Day, pastel, 18 x 24.
Over the next decade, while developing a national reputation as an accomplished pastelist, Dyer dabbled in oils but admits to struggling with the medium at first. Five years ago, however, she put down her pastels to devote her undivided attention and further education to oil painting until it clicked. She now goes between the two media to create her award-winning figurative works. In fact, her oil and pastel paintings are often indistinguishable, as they share the same strong use of line, layers of lush color, and painterly, light-filled quality.
Margaret Dyer, Kristin at the Piano, oil, 14 x 11.
Although her process varies with each medium, Dyer’s approach to color is consistent. “I was taught, when I first started working in pastel, that as long as the value is correct, the color can be anything,” she says. “This is still how I paint and teach. In both oil and pastel paintings, I layer color upon color—even sometimes seemingly clashing colors— in the same value until I get the visual vibration I’m after.”
Margaret Dyer, The Seamstress, oil, 20 x 16.
These vibrant results can be seen in all of Dyer’s paintings, including the pastel titled FIRST DAY AT THE BEACH and the oil painting THE SEAMSTRESS, which won Best of Show in the American Impressionist Society’s Associate Members Online Exhibition earlier this year. “All these years later, I feel the same way I felt in that figure-drawing class in college,” Dyer comments about these paintings and her other recent works. “It’s still that thrilling to me.” To learn more, visit www.margaretdyer.blogspot.com and www.patreon.com/margaretdyer.
Margaret Dyer, Dancer Alone, oil, 16 x 20.
This article is part of the Figuratively Speaking: Figure Paintings to Collect portfolio.