Had a great day today at Tindalls, Colchester getting messy on part one of the ‘Expressive Landscapes” workshop. This was the first time I’ve held a painting workshop and the first time a couple of the attendees had picked up a paintbrush in many years. I absolutely loved seeing the paintings come together throughout the course of the day and as always was impressed by the diversity and creativity. This was very much a learning curve for me also so thank you so much to the lovely ladies and gentleman that came along and made it so enjoyable, I look forward to seeing you all on part two in March.
We started off the day looking at the work of some inspirational artists including Scottish landscape Artists Scott Naismith, Julie Dumbarton, and Cornish landscape painter Neil Davies to name a few. After discussing different products, and techniques we began working from a selection of reference images to create some some mini paintings on canvas. Working on much smaller paintings first is like creating a sketch, giving you a good idea of what has been successful and what could be improved. Mini paintings also allowed the students to get a feel for how the paints work and could be used together as well as allowing for an understanding on how important the initial composition is. We were working with a combination of water soluble oils, acrylics and acrylic inks, embellishing with gold or silver leaf.
Once everyone had completed their mini painting we set up the easels and went large! Some students painted on canvas others on mount board of varying sizes. We put down a base layer using the water soluble oils in preparation for part two. Having left the paintings for a month, when we come back to them we will be ready to work into them with the acrylic paints, inks and foil. Once we’d finished the large paintings for the day, we revisited our minis and used a resin to coat the surface of the paintings.
