Works from our Idyllwild Plein Air Workshop
Happy moments creating art, appreciating nature’s beauty, laughter and fun conversations with dear friends, and learning the art of seeing as an artist sees with a true master, these times bring a deep sense of joy and satisfaction!
Dan Zimmerman, Idyllwild, 8/15/2020
Our workshop was Aug 10-14, 2020 in beautiful Idyllwild. It was 4 days of authentic plein air painting, about an hour per work each day from life. Except for the 3rd day in which we did edits using the pastel color studies and reference photos. On the last day we took the paintings back to location for finishing touches. I am afraid I was a bit of slave driver until the last day: they got to mostly just look at their work in the setting, work on their signatures, and put just a few touches here and there. Extremely proud how hard Susan, Luxman, and Dan worked. One of the artists is colorblind so he only did monochromes.
The pastel technique is using dark paper, and start with dark pastels that are just a tone lighter than the paper and gradually step up a tone at a time, driving towards the light. The last bit of light might have 10 layers of pastel.
The oil technique of under painting was to bath the canvas panel, 9x12"s, in a dark color, brown/black, then use a lot of paper towels (blue shop towels), to wipe off the painting in progressive layers, likewise with the pastels, to gently lift the light, one tone at a time until the final that being the lightest tone.
Thank you for a very amazing week! I learned
a tremendous amount and now have more confidence in trying new
projects on my own. You care so much about your students, your
knowledge and dedication really shine through.Susan Surber, Idyllwild, 8/15/2020
After that and being pressed for time, there was only a total of 3 hours for each oil painting, we concentrated on only adding detail and color in the areas touched by the sun's light. No fiddling around with the shadows. Shadows have about 8% of the information that the light areas have, so if they over work the shadows it kills any possibility of for the feeling of light. The students probably still hear my voice in their heads warning them to stay off the shadows.
The main theme of the workshop was to create light within light, not to brightly light edges, but reserve the brightest for inside. It creates a billowing feeling to the forms and a glow, really key when doing the clusters of vegetation.
I hope you enjoyed this vicariously.
Join us for our next workshop in Palm Desert, November 15 - 20th, 2020
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 8/15/2020