Apr 4 - Color Boot Camp in Progress--Student Samples

After the first full day of the Color Boot Camp ended, I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the students' paintings instead of mine. They say one can measure the success of a teacher by the quality of the students. Everyone "nailed" the morning light lesson, after the opening morning learning the importance of values in designing paintings. Here are two of the students' pieces, both completed to this stage in just under three hours. I asked permission to share them, and they enthusiastically said, "Yes!".

First is Christine's image of an elephant in water. She came in with a standard photograph taken by a friend on safari, and it was a traditionally gray and blue photo. By applying the color system, and relocating the head off to one side, she accomplished the goal of creating a dynamic composition and also set the time of day to morning. She'll add the ripples and define the water and the details on this 12 x 16 oil later. But this painting shows a great "AHA" moment for her, in that she said she'd never think to add the yellow to the right side of the pachyderm.

Second is a morning landscape from an ordinary photograph taken by Claudette. She finished this large (16 x 20 oil) in the afternoon of the first day! Knowing what colors to use allowed her to push forward and really get what she wanted without fighting to achieve the gentle light of morning. All of the students were successful in getting the morning light in their work.

Tomorrow, they'll be doing sunsets and noon lighting. I'll share more of their work with you then, if you like. I'm so pleased with the way the workshop is unfolding for these students. Then there are my demonstration paintings coming, too...

There's still room in the May Florida workshop (Georgia is full), and the September workshop in beautiful Maine. Color Boot Camps for FIVE FULL DAYS!

You can see my entire blog HERE.

My workshop schedule for 2009 is HERE (except for the June Riverside workshop).

Color System information can be found HERE.

If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Apr 3 - First Day of Color Boot Camp

Today ended the first full day of the April Color Boot Camp here at Two Trees Studio. I am pleasantly tired tonight, yet smiling as I do when I know the students had a valuable day behind them. I demonstrated how to make a fairly good old painting I had much better, by the knowledge of the Color System I'm teaching. I took this 24 x 36 acrylic that I painted back in 1998, and with glazes and some enhancement of areas, transformed it from a ho-hum nice painting to a definite morning light piece. I'd painted it in 1998 during the month after my dad died as a series of pathway paintings, coming to grips with losing a loved one, and the path we are all on during this stay on earth.

In the Color System, morning light is suffused with yellow (mostly) and shadows take on some characteristics of the receding night sky. It was fun to change the areas of sunlight and shadow to reflect this, and yet to hold to the integrity of the original painting.

Here's the old version for you to see what the original painting looked like before the demonstration of how to fix a canvas.

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2009 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.