Paint Small and Often [Carol Marine workshop]

Last Tuesday afternoon was one of the most difficult workshop experiences for me – but I learned a lot.  We selected one item, I picked a kiwi sliced in half.  We painted this item small, 3”x3” squares in my case, over and over.  We had 10 minutes to draw and paint each of these little beasts.  We whined A LOT, and we sweated in that hot, still room. 

Carol was in constant motion making the rounds.  She encouraged me to leave my white paint out of the mix until the very end of this kiwi project – it wasn’t necessary except for the highlights and was causing a dull result.  I was getting it by the 4th and 5th effort [row 1 #4, row 2 #1]…  but I have no idea what happened on the sixth – apparently I unlearned everything!  Carol even did a little demo for the class of my half kiwi before the sixth sketch but the law of diminishing returns was setting in for me health-wise.  When somebody begged to be allowed a new item for the 7th timed sketch, I jumped at the chance to paint this yellow pepper and get out of kiwi-ville.  It turned out okay for a 10 minute sketch but if you squint at the photo of the pepper you will see how dark my subject was on the unlit side.  My sketch should have considered that pretty early on.  Again, value is KEY to painting. 

 

I learned an awful lot from my Tuesday efforts.  Outlining them in this blog helps to drive home the points again. 

1. Paint as often as possible. Many small and quick sketches teaches more than one large painting
2. Use LESS white for many subjects. 
3. Bring a fan to workshops [wink]
4. Ten minutes is long enough to consider lights and darks.  Slow down to speed up. 
5. Painting is SO MUCH FUN [oops! I already knew that didn’t I]

Cheers!