Looking forward to some great workshops coming up – Australia, Canada, USA and Italy…
Currumbin Studio Workshop – May 28 – 29 2016
Kelowna, BC, Canada – 2 day workshop on 2nd and 3rd July 2016
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
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Tag Archives: Painting Workshop
WORKSHOP DEMOS
Here are some of the demo paintings from the Tasmanian workshop.
Cray Boats moored in the bay at Bicheno – Gesso, Gouach and Phthalo Blue
Further around the bay at Bicheno are rock formations covered in brilliant orange lichen
Old boat sheds at Coles Bay made a great subject – interrupted briefly by the retrieval of a dozen yellow kayaks paddled into the bay.
Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain is a spectacular sight. We were lucky to be able to paint it – the mountains are usually blanketed in thick fog.
Hobart Waterfront – watercolor, ink, gesso and gouache
Macquarrie Harbour from the hotel balcony, Strahan.
WEEKEND STUDIO WORKSHOPS
Over the past two weekends I held a couple of 2 day workshops here in my studio. A lot of people, due to work commitments, find it hard to attend the 5 day workshops. We had an enthusiastic group both weekends and managed to do a lot of painting in between chatting, drinking coffee and eating cakes. The demonstration paintings below show a couple from each workshop.
This was the first painting we did in one of the workshops. A simple subject, but lots of interesting colors and textures. We used a mixture of watercolor, gouache, ink, charcoal and inktense pencil.
Here I chose a more complicated subject, but broke it down into simple shapes, then went to town with the different colors and textures. The first washes were watercolor over charcoal lines, then gouache, ink and pastel were added. the intense blue of the boat hulls is Ultramarine Gouache.
Another complicated subject treated in a simple way – playing around with washes while holding on to a clean, high contrast focal area.
This was the first demo in the second workshop. Again a simple subject with plenty of color and texture to play around with.
These workshops were a lot of fun and booked out very quickly, so we will run a couple more towards the end of the year. Mean time, there are still a few places left in the 5 day march workshops
VENICE WORKSHOP
Venice has to be one of the most spectacular painting destinations in Italy. Standing on Rialto bridge and looking down the Grand Canal feels more like watching a bizarre movie than experiencing a thriving city.
We arrived in the afternoon and were rapidly transported to our hotel by water taxi.
Leaving Marco Polo Airport by water taxi is a chaotic experience. 110 Euro from the airport to the city means the drivers are pretty serious about getting the job done quickly.
Churning through the back alleys en route to Accademia Bridge
Painting on the grand canal.
Early morning along the canals
The last gondola workshop in Venice was just around the corner from our hotel … and right opposite a great little bar.
Everything is delivered by barges along the canals
A late afternoon storm blackened the sky behind Santa Maria della Salute making for some great photos.
Evening drinks along the waterfront
Interpreti Veneziana were performing at the San Vidal Church, 5 minutes from our hotel. Italian Baroque played with passion and enthusiasm – a fantastic night.
Burano Houses
Burano is famous for its lace making, but I think this guy is mending a fishing net.
LAYERED LEAVES
During the last workshop we experimented with a technique that produces interesting results if it doesn’t drive you mad first. The idea is to start with a background wash, draw the shapes of stones, leaves and twigs onto it, then, with a slightly darker tone fill in all the negative spaces. More leaves, twigs etc are then drawn into the darker negative areas and the negative spaces around the new shapes is made slightly darker. This incremental darkening is done 3-4 times then the shapes are modeled, ink and pastel lines are added, colors splashed on and gesso washes are used to simplify areas.
The process is a lot of fun and often triggers interesting ideas. The example below was done as a demo on aluminium composite panel primed with watercolor gesso. The heavy vertical marks were masked up and painted over the top with more watercolor gesso then the tones were adjusted.
These next images give an idea of the build up using negative shapes.
Once you get the hang of it this can be great fun. The subject can be any reasonably defined object – tools, utensils, paint brushes, pencils – anything that can layer one over the other.
AIX WORKSHOP
After a week in Paris we flew to Marseilles to meet up with the people on our workshop. It was great to catch up with friends from previous workshops and meet up with the new students. A coach took us to our luxury hotel, Le Piggonet, on the outside of the old town of Aix en Provence.
The hotel was a beautiful old building set in magnificent gardens. We could have happily spent a week painting in the gardens, but the town of Aix had a lot to offer so we split our painting time between the hotel and the town.
Le Piggonet
Hotel Gardens
Painting in the Hotel gardens
Dining at Le Piggonet
Flower markets Aix en Provence
Street Markets
We were introduced to some fantastic restaurants in the town. One of our students lived in the country side not far from Aix and had a great knowledge of all the best restaurants. This was one of our favorites – Le Patio, a small family run restaurant with a great atmosphere, good service and fantastic food.
The little town of St. Remy is not far from Aix en Provence. We spent a day there, painting and visiting the Asylum Van Gogh spent time in. We were privileged to paint in the garden of the asylum, where Van Gogh would have often sat and sketched.
Although the asylum surroundings were idealic, life inside must have been horrific. These bath tubs were filled with cold water into which troublesome inmates were immersed and trapped under these wooden boards.
In the town of St. Remy, the main square provided a quiet, spacious area surrounded by ancient stone walls and wooden shutters. We spent an enjoyable afternoon painting there before heading back to our hotel for drinks under the plane trees.
Blue Shutters – St. Remy
Cassis is a small fishing town on the Mediterranean coast not far from Aix. The busy harbour and backdrop of old buildings made a great painting subject. We shared the park across the harbour with the local boules players, cigarette smokers and baguette eaters. Under the shade of a grove of casuarina trees, we painted the changing vista of the harbour.
Cassis Waterfront
Paul Cezanne lived and painted in Aix en Provence. His house and studio have been made into a museum, crammed with his old coats, umbrellas, paint boxes, skulls, bones and still life props that feature in his paintings.
Cezanne had the house built to his design – living area downstairs, large studio upstairs.
The studio ceiling is about 5 metres high and the Northern wall, almost completely glass. The walls are painted a mid tone, neutral gray and there is a 4 meter x .5 meter corner hatch to remove large works from the studio. It’s a fantastic studio, unfortunately no photographs are allowed inside. Below is the front door to the house.
BEND WORKSHOP
As usual the Bend workshop was a lot of fun. It was great to catch up with friends from our previous Oregon workshops, and to finally meet people we had only spoken to via email. Tracy, Jan and Cindy did a fantastic job keeping things running smoothly and Tracy’s husband, Bob, drove up from Depot Bay one day to treat us to a feast of Dungeness crab and fresh fish – Yum – fantastic! We had students from as far away as Florida, Hawaii, Canada and even Russia
The big studio at the Pheonix Inn is well set up with an overhead camera for demos and large tables for all students
Two color demo using Indigo and a transparent, Burnt Sienna like color mixed from Quinaceradone Gold, Alizarin and a touch of Ultramarine
Making sense of a complicated subject
A simple subject made interesting by shifting the emphasis away from formal symmetry to a more dynamic diagonal thrust.
A workshop in Bend, Oregon wouldn’t be right without a painting of Mirror Pond.
Cheese cloth, rice paper, pastel, ink and gesso were used to build up the interesting textures of this Italian Hilltop Village.
In this painting of Monterey Wharf, Ultramarine Blue gouache was used to give maximum impact to the focal point.
This simple subject is a lot of fun to paint and a great way to work with positive and negative shapes.
We are looking forward to coming back to the US for more workshops in the not too distant future.
