This weekend was another one of my painting workshops, but with an emphasis on horses and at Twincreeks in Duncan. We had a great group of gals join in to learn to paint or to advance their skills in painting horses. One never knows who will sign up to these workshops and when you are going to spend three days together, you always hope they are fun loving folks. Well, we sure got that one covered this weekend.
Friday night we got acquainted over a beverage of our choice while we settled in. I then did a demo on a picture of a friends horse "Sterling" that I took a couple of years back. The image above is the outcome - to date - and I may fiddle a bit more with him before I post him on the site.
With every workshop, I learn something new that I want to do to enhance the experience for the participants. This time I did a demo and asked them their goals for the workshop, and told them a bit about what would happen over the next few days. The emphasis Friday was on getting to know one another and watching the first stage of the painting appear - from sketch to composition. I never do my best work at my workshops as I am more into the students work than my own - but this weekend was a bit different. As much as I hate the colour purple - which was my background choice - I have to say that painting the things I love the most - horses - with the colours I like the least - purple - was a good way to expand my palette.
More on the workshop in the next post... watch us unveil our masterpieces!
I love watching people (including myself) face fears and dislikes head-on. Sometimes they are just plain irritants, sometimes they hold us back in ways where we'd be better off free. It was fun (glass of wine in hand) at our introductory chat with Nicole, to hear her talk about colour in general, and the one colour she really has never liked. And then to see her start her demo piece with -- the colour purple!
ReplyDeleteAnd over the next two days, her painting of Sterling moved from being a blurry sketch and underpainting to coming into its full, deep, rich tonalities and three-dimensional horsyness. It was great to watch it emergy and to see Nicole grow yet another wonderful step into her fine artistry. Great modelling, teacher!