May Workshop

Block Study Demo

This week I had my first workshop of the summer. It was a great chance to reacquaint  my self with the fundamentals of light and shade and color.

I gave a quick demo using one color for each side of the block, or mass. Then I mixed another color into the mass refining the color. By painting this way, we are learning to see color so that when we go out to paint a landscape, it will feel like the type of day we painted it, sunny or cloudy.









The students struggled though this exercise and came out with a good feeling of what the sunny day block study should be.

Block Studies 

 In the afternoon I have a quick demonstration of my house and the lane, using a pallet knife. By making one note of color next to the other note of color I created this little study of a landscape created purely through color notes.


I was amazed at the students interest and desire to learn color. It really renewed my own person pursuit of color and made me want to study even more.

We went out and painted a cloudy day landscape of the Moors. it was interesting to see how everyone's painting looked very much like the cloudy day we were having. I think in some ways the local color is easier to see.

When the rain came we went inside and worked on more complicated still life advancing our study of color and developing our eye.

We put up all the paintings from the week up to look at. It was interesting to see how everyone's hard work paid off!
We all got better.
I am more convinced than ever that studying the color is one of the most important aspects of oil painting .