Saturday, March 21, 2009

Eric Wiegardt Workshop Day 3


After my disappointing painting of boats, Eric's next demo was a street scene. Hmmm....I didn't have any street photos. I watched his demo of a street in Italy with some people walking. The lesson was on combining shapes. When I looked through my photos, I found one that I thought I could use for the lesson. It is a photo of a couple of people walking down to "Fish Beach" on Monhegan Island, Maine. One of the people was my sister Joan. We had gone there to paint, so I just turned the other person into myself to make it more personal.
This time we worked on wet paper, and I had a little bit of trouble making my buildings hold an edge, which made them look a little wonky, but that's part of doing a "loose" painting. Here is my version of a "street scene" (done in a place that doesn't even have streets).
On Day 4, Eric did his demo of a market with a flower stand and several people. It was loose and colorful. I started a painting of some people walking down a garden path. I haven't finished it yet, but Eric liked it enough to have me put it up for "gallery night" on Day 5, even though it was clearly not completed. I will post it here on my blog when I finish it. The last day, Friday, was only a partial day, so I watched the demo Eric did of a snow scene, and then worked some more on my garden painting. It was a great workshop - wonderful demos, lots of painting time, hanging out with other artists for a week, a few walks on the beach, and a party at the end while we admired each other's paintings.


Eric Wiegardt Workshop Day 1



Two weeks ago my sister Joan and I took a workshop in Myrtle Beach with Eric Wiegardt. We painted several full sheet landscapes using big brushes. It was a little outside the box for me, as I usually paint flowers, and I am definitely not known to be a loose painter.
The first day concentrated on values, and we were required to do a value study before each painting. Value studies are not new for me, I've been taught to do them before, but I rarely do them. This time I did, and they really do help. Eric demonstrated value ranges with a monochromatic version and a full color version of a barn with some outbuildings. Since I had a similar photo in my stash, I decided to paint my own barn. I used burnt umber as my color. Following his demo, I did a graded wash for an underpainting, and then tried to stick to my 3-value study. This is the result.

Day two was a boat demo, and then I did a boat painting. The demo was about not overmixing your colors. I'm pretty good about my colors, but I am horrendous at drawing boats, so I am not going to post my boat painting here. So on to day 3.