'California Cloud Study'. 2.5 x3.5. Pastel
It's hard work being a student! I love it though. I left the first day of the workshop with my notebook full of notes and fired up enough to go back to my hotel room and paint! This is a three day workshop on painting skies, clouds and water. Liz said she could take six weeks to cover it all so this is a condensed version!
Today we focused on skies with clouds. Liz began the day with a talk about her 'Good Bones' approach to a painting. She stressed the importance of understanding the basics of painting and good drawing. The Good Bones approach allows you to plan the painting and takes you step by step through the process of thumbnails, value sketches and doing an alcohol wash underpainting. These are my paintings from today (below)
At the end of the day we gathered for critique. Liz stressed that critique is an opportunity to learn from one another and not to see who did the best painting. We are all there to learn....not to compare ourselves to one another. It was fun to see everyone's work. I always love seeing how different we all paint similar subjects!
Liz was hard on me which I welcomed! I am in the workshop to stretch myself and learn. She suggested I avoid using colors that are too white (pasty looking) in the land. I needed to use more richly pigmented pastels. Also my sky in the beach painting is too light. So I decided to come back to the room after dinner and paint another version of the first painting. I left all of my supplies at the workshop location but I had my trusty mini kit. I like the new version better.
TIP: Liz suggested that we save our workshop pieces as they are. If we want to make corrections we should paint it again...otherwise if we keep working on the workshop painting, the lessons may be lost. I will redo both of my paintings when I get home.
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5 comments:
It's nice that as wonderful an artist as you are that you are still willing to take a workshop to learn more. Some think they are too prideful or as "learned" as they can be. I always think one can keeping stretching themselves for greater understanding. I learn from you all the time and since I purchased your little minis I can study them up close!
I love both versions! Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
I recently attended a 3-day workshop with Liz on the topic of landscape and your comments are an echo. A great reminder of what I learned. Think I'll try re-painting my workshop pieces. I enjoy seeing how you paint your subjects and I appreciate hearing how Liz has tweaked your approach. Looking forward to more reports. Rita
Thank you for sharing the tips you are learning with us here online. Always greatly appreciated Karen!
Your sky and clouds are so beautiful, it made me realize I don't think I have ever done a skycape painting. Maybe I need to study with your teacher.
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