September Workshop, Day One

Day One of this workshop was terrific!, Great weather, and unlimited subject matter down at Jensen's Shipyard. Jensen's will be celebrating 100 years next year. We might have to organize of show of all the paintings that have been done there over the years. Everyone got a good start today, finding interesting views, and doing well working with the paint. In particular, all artists had a good grasp of mixing color. Tomorrow we will go to a pastorial location and try our black gesso underpainting.

Day 2 on San Juan Island

The second day of the our workshop was quite remarkable, perfect weather, no wind, and 360 degrees of beauty. Everyone was inspired, and much more comfortable with painting and using the materials. We introduced a new technique, a non traditional approach,starting with a black gesso underpainting, followed by a transparent glaze to tone the canvas. All this before starting in with the regular opaque oil paint.This technique worked very successfully for everyone.

Path to the Beach, Summer Morning ....Impasto

Impasto, thick paint, capturing the scene, path to the beach. 11 x 14 oil on canvas.

Coming up, September Plein Air Workshop
Sept 6 and 7th. I have changed the workshop to a 2 day event, instead of 4 days. I think that will work better for everyone.
Call to sign up, and we welcome the artists coming from Olympia! Telephone: (360)378 2638

Day 2 Workshop, We head down to the Docks

The picture says it all....a fantastic day! We worked with transparent and opaque paint down at our local shipyard, full of boats and great shapes. Wonderful paintings by all today.

The next image shows Sharon's painting at the early stage with only a gesso drawing covered by a yellow glaze. Later, next image, she was painting with opaques. John created a dynamic composition using the dock and boat shapes, using acrylic, building uplayers of paint with a red underpainting. Last image, a charming rendering of the skiffs on the dock.

Plein Air Workshop, Great Day for Everyone!

Lorette joined us from Texas, and we loved having her paint with us. She cut loose with color!
Wendy Woods with her San Juan barn series. She used black gesso, lavender glaze, and opaques last to create this oil painting.
Lisa McHugh's excellent composition of fenceposts leading us to the barn. Barbara's painting looking out across the fields. Though she didn't think it was done, we all liked that she left a big open space in the foreground. What to do with all that grass????????
The fourth image is today's demonstration painting from our beautiful day at Sarah Robert's family farm overlooking San Juan Valley. 15 of us spread out around the farm and each of us found an intriguing view point. In fact there were painting possibilities everywhere we looked. We talked about getting started with thumbnail sketches and looked at the working sketchbook of long-time San Juan Artist, Elvera Spivey. We looked at some fine examples of plein air painting by unlikely artist not known for his outdoor work, Morandi( the bottle guy). I promoted the idea of working with simple compositions. For the demonstration we gathered under an oak tree, and I showed ways to begin, both with a conte start, and with thinned out paint. I worked starting at the top and far back, working forward with a palette knife. Also showed mixing right on the canvas. Many wonderful paintings were created today, Congratulations to all who participated on our land and sea plein air workshop!
Painting from Sarah Robert's farm sold, proceeds to benefit San Juan Preservation Trust.