Spring Sustained Saturday Watercolour Class – May 2

Sustained Saturdays run from 10am – 4:30pm. We stop painting at 4pm and take half an hour to look at the work together. In other words, there’s lots of painting time. I don’t rush my morning demonstration and I strongly suggest that the students devote ample time to preliminary studies.

My demonstration focused on basics; value and colour. Some of the objects in the still life were more challenging to draw than others. An orange may not test the limits of a student with decent drawing skills but the handle on the big jar is a different story. I painted the handle (left side of sheet) in four values. Actually, I only painted three values. The lightest value (1) is the paper white itself; no paint necessary. There are two middle tones (2 & 3) and a strong dark (4).

The warm colours of the oranges and grapefruit really glow against the blue objects and fabric. It’s not always easy to capture that essence in a painting. You could hear a pin drop in the last few hours as the students were absorbed in their work. I spend most of my time in the later afternoon reminding them to step back from their paintings and view them in an upright position. Better decisions are made from a distance and one has to keep a fresh eye. Time stepping back is never time wasted, especially on a Sustained Saturday!

Sustained Saturday Critique

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Tags: Barry Coombs, Canada, Ontario, still-life painting, Studio Classes, Toronto, Toronto watercolour classes, watercolor, watercolour demonstration