The Pessemiers have been leading workshops in Europe since 1993. From 2010 until 2015, they guided painters in Paris, along the Seine, in the Luxembourg Gardens, to Giverny and Auvers-sur-Oise. They moved to Italy in 2015.
As teachers, they help you find your own voice. They have painted with painters of all levels and styles, from beginners to seasoned abstract artists. Their style of leading is “hands off” – they will help you as you ask for guidance; otherwise they encourage the positive aspects of your work to help you feel comfortable with your own style.
They can help you find a “looseness” and natural way that will make painting an even greater enjoyment and visual success.
They use an alternate palette of five colors to create all of their work. They can guide you to find that clarity of color only achieved by mixing from pure pigments. Their preferred medium is acrylic (Golden Brand Acrylics) but are likewise versed in oil-based and watercolor paints.
Laurie also works in collage; Blair is a great draftsman. They both enjoy printmaking and sculpture.
Laurie Fox Pessemier
wrote her first illustrated story book at age 7. She drew pictures in the margins of her grade school notebooks, and when she finally took her first art course at Gilbert High School with Thada Lufkin, she was hooked. She entered the world of Art.
Laurie Fox Pessemier was schooled as a traditional oil painter. She holds a degree in Art History as well as Art. She grew up in Connecticut and spent much time at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford. She worked as an Art Librarian at the Hartford Art School until she left the Northeastern US for Seattle, Washington. Here she met and married her fellow artist and soulmate, Blair Pessemier.
Laurie has painted throughout her life, even when the two ran an architectural and interior design firm in Seattle, Washington. In 1993, Laurie and Blair decided to follow their dream to live abroad, and ended up in Paris. It was here Laurie hit her stride in painting, with her greatest concentration and success. Her first major sales were in the Southeastern United States, where her earliest work in Paris was shown.
Laurie’s painting has a distinct impressionist leaning. Laurie paints positive images in strong colors.
She has won awards for her work in Paris, and exhibited her paintings on three continents, in more than fifty shows.
Blair Pessemier
fought against family pressure to become a painter. The only way he was allowed to express his art was by becoming an architect. After several years of architectural practice he and his wife, Laurie, became artists “in earnest”.
Blair Pessemier was born in Seattle, Washington, and lived with his family in many places around the world. One summer, in New York City, his mother took him and his sisters to every museum she could find. He copied Rembrandt. He found paints which belonged to his grandfather in the basement of their home , and an artist was born.
Blair is a painter with an acute sense of composition and form. He paints in both oil and acrylic, from life and from imagination. His palette is that of a contemporary impressionist. He paints many scenes from Paris: cafes and bridges, carousels and fountains.
It was Blair who first taught “plein air painting” to artists in Paris in 1994. He and Laurie continue that tradition today. He hasn’t laid down his brush since then, having at least two shows a year.
Blair also works in metal, creating sculptural pieces, whenever the opportunity presents itself.