Thursday, March 10, 2011

Color Workshop with Bill Perkins

Last week I was able to go to a painting workshop with Bill Perkins. Bill is a very experienced artist who has done a lot of things. Check out his two websites here and here. He described this workshop as "color boot camp" designed to teach us as much about color and light as possible in just three days. He had us do many quick (30-45 min) paintings from the model under different lighting situations. I really enjoyed the colored lights, but the flat light situations were particularly challenging. It was a lot like doing plein air paintings, but of people rather than landscapes. He kept telling us not to worry about our drawing since there was no time for that, and so some of those sketches look pretty bad, but I thought I'd post them all up here anyway because I wanted to show the whole experience.
A lot of what we talked about was familiar, like starting with just values and talking about tonal contrast before moving on to saturation and hue contrasts, which is the way I teach digital painting. But there were some new ideas too, which really shouldn't have been new to me but somehow I managed to come this far without understanding them. Overall it was a great experience and I am excited to try out some of those new ideas in a painting when I can spend longer than 3o minutes on it.
And if you are interested in seeing what some other people did at the workshop Greg Newbold has blogged about it, and I thought Simini did a really nice job of capturing those colors.

7 comments:

  1. Dave, I am constantly amazed that no matter how much you learn about painting, there is always more to learn. Like you, a lot of the theory in the workshop seemed familiar, but several things jumped out and I shook my head wondering how I had missed that particular nugget in all my years of study and experience. Bill's workshop was definitely worth the time and money spent. Don't be so tough on yourself- I think most of your studies turned out better than mine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Dave. Your studies look awesome. I will admit to frequently looking over your shoulder for guidance :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are incredible Dave! I love how loose yet how accurate they all feel and the wide variety of color schemes and moods you captured...Awesome work!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey I remember these paintings! I love how they turned out. Just like Simini, I was definitely peeking over your shoulder every now and again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks guys. It was definitely a fun workshop. And good to see you all there. Except Josh... Where were you?

    ReplyDelete
  6. i'm interested to know what things were new that you didn't know before...i'm sure they'd be new to me as well :)

    and really nice studies! i SO wish i could have gone.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I super love this painting. Beautiful!

    Homeowner Insurance

    ReplyDelete