Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Workshop Work

Corona Del Mar State Beach, 8 x 10
available

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a workshop in Newport Beach, California with Randall Sexton and a dozen or so other acolytes. Randall gave a demo each day and, among many other things, emphasized the importance of squinting down to help, not only identify value relationships, but to help with the overall composition through the abstract patterns made by the large dark masses. He also stressed the benefit of painting in "large puzzle pieces" to cover the canvas, without necessarily mapping in a line under-painting first. This can help keep the painting loose. The study above and the three following are all fairly quick plein air attempts at using these methods, without later going back to "fix" imperfections.

9 comments:

Janet Bludau Fine Art said...

Beautiful color. Fixing the imperfections usually messes up the painting, doesn't it? If you have some here, I don't see them - good job.

mary maxam said...

I'm enjoying this whole week of workshop paintings from you. This is a good and interesting reminder about that whole pattern thing.This is such a ggod feeling of atmosphere

Dewberry Fine Art said...

I really appreciate your sharing of the workshop. Your paintings are strong and loose too. Very refreshing work. Wonderful color and design. Any of these could be made large with wonderful results. Thanks for sharing.

Michael Chamberlain said...

Really nice work!! Beautiful painting.

Kathryn Townsend said...

I love the design and color harmonies of this one--it really caught my eye!

Carol Schiff Daily Painting said...

Stephen,

Love the composition, the abstract qualities, the colors.

Karen Bruson said...

Good one.

Anonymous said...

Love the colours and composition. I just want to be there.

Kelley Carey MacDonald said...

This is one of my all-time favorite pieces of yours, Stephen, so I guess all of Sexton's advice was good! Nice and loose, wonderful harmonies!