The workshop was two days in length and involved painting and 11 by 14 inch portrait of a man with a massive beard.  I was unsure and a bit skeptical of how well an online painting workshop would workout. It was pretty good, had some technical glitches but that was to be expected as this was David’s first online workshop.

As part of the workshop we, the participants, would follow along and send in photos of our progress for review. It worked out to two reviews per day and these were quite valuable. At each step I was on the right path but has some issues that needed to be addressed. With out the crits I surely wouldn’t have got the results I did. Watching the other participants work get reviewed was valueble as well, so much to be learned by seeing other people’s approach to the same painting.

Below is my step by step progress.

My Setup

My studio setup, prepared like a total keener.

Day 1

Day 1 Photo 1 - Sketch

Day 1 Photo 2 - Darks

Day 2

Day 2 Photo 1 - Flesh tones

Day 2 Photo 2 - Photo sent for final critique

At this point it’s not done. Had a few things to finish up and some pointers from Dave.

The Bearded Man, Final Painting

I took a couple pictures as I worked through this painting over the course of a few sessions. I started with a canvas toned with some Burt Umber to give it a warm base. Next I sketched out the shape with paint, again some Burnt Umber. Then I got to business laying down darks first an then blocking in major values.

I was pretty happy with the results of my first session. The painting was feeling somewhat accurate and loose, I’m really trying to loosen up my painting style. However I felt my colours were too cool so I swapped out the lemon yellow from my palate and used Cadmium Yellow instead. I ended up painting at least one whole new layer over the first session.  The paint went on a lot smoother this time which was nice.

I  paid a lot of attention to warm and cool values during my second session. I had a small window to the left that was letting some nice cool blue light that hit in the shadows. I also had a warm brown surface that the valve was sitting on so I wanted that warmer value to be reflected in the relevant shadows.

Here is the end product.

I learned a lot on this painting exercise, it’s certainly not perfect but I’m happy to let that go and move onto a new painting, which I started today. Carrots, yeah I know, not exciting but I want to paint something orange. 

So I’ve been painting. Initially I was a bit apprehensive to get started, which is natural, but once I did, wow, I haven’t looked back. As a perk, I’ve rediscovered music and fallen behind on some TV shows. All good.

Rather than dive in head first and tackle big complex paintings I wanted to work on some basics to get myself perpared for the ’serious’ projects.

1. Observation. This is one of the first things I like to do when getting back into art projects (usually have breaks of many years between attempts). To get this muscle back in shape I’ve opted to do a bunch of still life’s until I feel comfortable with the medium and process. In the past I’ve used life drawing class as a great way to get back  in shape.

2. Oils as a medium. It’s been years since I had an intro to oil painting class so I feel like I’m totally  back to basics. I’m certainly learning a lot with each painting.

3. Process. I like process, I like to know what’s behind a piece of work, the different steps taken, so I’ve been reading books and watching videos to get exposed to as many different and not so different approaches to painting with oils.

To help me along I’ve loaded myself up with a few good books that are not the typical how to paint variety but ones that get deeper into colour theory, mixtures, harmony and all that good stuff. The books I’ve got right now are Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color, Helen Van Wyk’s Favorite Color Recipes and Mastering Color. All really good books so far, it’s going to take me a while to get through them. I’ve also been taking advantage of all the great demos on you tube, check out my youtube favorites for a good sampling to start with. I’ve also found a wonderful ustream show by Dave the Painting guy, Dave paints portraits and takes his audience thought he process from start to finish over as many sessions as it takes. I’m not painting portraits yet but I have been learning quite a bit through listening and observing Dave’s painting process and techniques.

So here are a few still life paintings I’ve done over the last month. Nothing groundbreaking here but everyone has to start somewhere.

Oil painting of lemons, December 2008

Oil painting of radishes, December 2008

Oil painting of teacup, December 2008

Oil painting of apples, January 2009

Oil painting of a baseball, January 2009

Horseshoe Canyon

Horseshoe Canyon was an excellent stop, and I think we saw it at a great time of the year. The grass was still fresh and green and hadn’t browned from the heat of the summer.

Horseshoe Valley, 2008

Hoodoos

Can’t got to the Badlands and not check out the Hoodoos. To be honest before this trip I really didn’t know what a hoodoo was or how they got their name. Essentially it’s two layers of rock, the lower being a softer sedimentary rock and the top cap being a harder rock. Over time the softer rock is eroded creating an interesting totem shape. Here is an interesting link on the origins of the word hoodoo.

Hoodoos, 2008

The following are a few others photos taken around the Hoodoos site.

untitled, 2008

I don’t know about you but this harder rock formation in the foreground looks like a head to me.

untitled, 2008