Last Thursday, I was at the Dundas Valley School of Art to lead my fourth and final one-day workshop of the spring term. Two weeks prior, I’d presented a workshop of the same basic theme but our still-life was a collection of rusty and dusty gas cans. On Thursday, we worked from an equally interesting group of worn and distressed objects. Do you know what they are? If you live in a coastal area, you probably recognize them as fishing floats.
My demonstrations were similar to those of the first workshop. Our basic process was to draw with pencil, paint with watercolour and then add ink. Along the way, we used different materials and techniques to create texture. Soft-edge techniques, wax, dry-brush and other ideas were presented. We began with a practice sheet of swatches and experiments.
You may have noticed that our still-life has a lot of white in it. The four whites enclosed by the blue area on the sheet below are all different from each other; some warmer and some cooler.
Our next step was a sheet of studies of individual objects.
We’ll take a closer look at the old cork net float from the sheet above. Note the pen work on the edge of the object. Texture isn’t present only in the ‘interior’ of the object. What is done on the edges is very important.
Eventually, we had a look at the study sheets created by the students.
Study Sheets
We cover a lot of territory in these workshops. Following lunch, I discussed some basic thoughts about composition, including the rule of thirds. Our goal was to create a composition and work on it for the afternoon. Each student selected and composed an area of the still-life.
Also, I talked about some common problems in compositions such as run-on lines, edge issues, kisses and spatial relationships.
The rest of the day was spent working diligently and thoughtfully on the work. As usual, not everyone finished their piece but these workshops are about learning and taking ideas away for future use; process over product. Here are the works in progress:
Thursday Critique a
Thursday Critique b
Tags: Barry Coombs, Canada, Dundas Valley School of Art, Ontario, pen and ink, pen and watercolour, Sketching, still-life drawing, Studio Classes, watercolor, watercolour demonstration
Barry Coombs Art Workshops 
03/06/2019 at 1:47 pm |
Barry, your students do so well! Thanks for including your teaching examples. I’m always reminded of something that I need to remember when painting.