Art Club May Events

While summer is almost here, the PebbleCreek Art Club will still be busy in May with three classes, open studios, and several members-only events.

Suzie Black, a new instructor, will be teaching an abstract class in acrylics on May 8. As a professional painter on the East Coast in the 1990s, Suzie was strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, especially by Richard Diebenkorn and Willem de Kooning. She teaches at Scottsdale Artists School. A full description of the class and the supply list can be found online at pcartclub.com.

On May 9, Duane Blossom returns for a class in Ink Sketch with Watercolors. His April class filled quickly, so this is another chance to learn this technique. Duane, a landscape architect, has a passion for pen and ink sketching, urban sketching and storyboard diagramming. Please go to pcartclub.com for more information on this class.

And on May 14, Michele Corsini, whose classes are very popular, returns for a class, Painting Agaves with Pastels.

Escape the heat in an Open Studio! Unless a class is planned, Open Studios are scheduled in the Creative Arts Center’s Coyote Room for members of the Art Club all day every Tuesday and Thursday and Wednesdays from 1 to 4 p.m. Open Studio for all residents is scheduled Fridays and Saturday.

Also in May, club members can sign up for the May 1 First Friday Lunch at Eagle’s Nest and the Mid-Month Mingle at the Westwind Tavern on Monday, May 11. Please register for these events so we can accommodate those who will be attending.

Featured Artist of the Month: Mark Pajari

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Milwaukee, where I discovered two- and three-point perspective drawing while in grade school, drawing buildings and city street scenes. My passion for drawing continued in high school where I took pretty much every art class my school offered. I discovered watercolor, oils, and acrylic, and started drawing cartoons and caricatures.

I went on to study graphic design and photography at Milwaukee Area Technical College. I joined the school newspaper as the graphics editor where I began drawing editorial cartoons and created my first comic strip.

My first job out of college took me in technical direction at Quad Graphics, where I was a digital photo retoucher and scanner operator. I learned all about color theory, digital photography, and graphic reproduction in print. I also did many caricatures, designed t-shirts for corporate events, and started my own comic strip, “Off Register,” in the corporate newspaper. At this point in my life, I aspired to be a nationally syndicated cartoonist (think “Dilbert” or “Bloom County” when newspapers were still a thing).

My career path led me to Chicago, to Madison, Wis., to Southern California and, since 2022, the beautiful valley of the sun that we call home. My professional work has centered around managing art departments and digital imaging groups working with catalogs, magazines, and more recently e-commerce marketing companies. I still work full time as the Director of Premedia at Artisan Colour in North Scottsdale.

I put my pencils, paintbrushes, and markers aside for a long time, focusing on photography as a nice little side business. I started doing headshots, family portraits, sporting events, and weddings and still do that today.

Last year, my wife tried to lure me back into being creative again when she gave me a set of colored pencils as a birthday gift. I’m happy to say that her efforts have been successful.

I am really drawn to soft pastels and pastel pencils. I love the blending properties of pastel and the hyper realism that can be achieved with it. The first pastel painting I did was a portrait of my son, Luke, when he was about a year old. That was 24 years ago. Painting and drawing are a lot like riding a bike. Once you develop a passion for it, you never really forget how. And like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get.

Just as I enjoy portrait photography, I enjoy creating portraits of people with pastel or graphite. I guess I have always gravitated toward recreating the human face. Expressive eyes, a friendly smile, laugh lines, and flyaway hairs… But you don’t have to look any further than my pastel portrait of my awesome dog, Stella, to know that I find man’s best friend fascinating to paint as well.

Mark’s works can be seen in both clubhouses and the Creative Arts Center during the month of May.

“Meet the Artist” Show Brings Artists and Residents Together

One of the greatest benefits of the Spring PebbleCreek Art Club show is the opportunity for residents to talk to the artists directly about their work, gaining an appreciation for what motivated the painters and the techniques used to achieve their goals.

With only 20 participating artists, the show allows them to display many of their paintings, which demonstrates the subjects they like to paint the most. Some tables will be filled with renderings of flowers or architecture, while others will be filled with abstract art. Some painters work only in watercolors, while others in mixed media, oils, acrylics or pastels. The large number of paintings displayed offer residents an opportunity to see the vast variety of art produced in PebbleCreek.

A second benefit of the show is the opportunity for residents to commission paintings directly from the artist, which amounted to about a third of all the 2025 sales.

For example, when an artist displays portraits of dogs and cats, pet owners want a painting of their own four-legged family member. Other times, a painting is sold before the resident had a chance to purchase it or the painting was too large for the house. In those cases, a dialogue ensues about what the resident is looking for, and the artist may agree to paint something on commission.

The spring show is one of two shows the PebbleCreek Art Club presents. While more artists enter the show in the fall, no more than three of their paintings will be on display, and the artists are not present.

While the PebbleCreek Art Club slows down during the summer, when many artists are traveling, the members will be actively working on their paintings for the fall show on Friday, Nov. 13. Please save the date on your calendar—it promises to be an outstanding show.