Here are a few samples of the many color studies I did last week at the Bill Perkins workshop that I advertised in the previous post. It was my second time taking the color theory workshop, and although I don't know if it's showing up in my work yet, I think I'm starting to grasp some of the concepts that Bill talked about. These were all 40 minute studies of various color and lighting situations.
This one was the last one I did at the color workshop and we got to spend 80 minutes on it, which by that time seemed like an eternity. Ok, not really-it just seemed like 80 minutes. I still had to paint really fast. I took a picture after every 20 minutes during the model breaks so you can kind of see the progression.
The second half of the week was the plein air workshop. We spent a lot of time watching Bill paint, looking for good painting locations, looking for good eating locations(this was the most successful part for me) and in between all that I painted these studies. I don't feel like these turned out particularly well, but I was trying some things that I don't usually do, like paint rainbow umbrellas. Bill gave me some good things to think about, so hopefully my next few paintings will start to show some improvement.
All in all it was a great week of painting with some of my favorite artist friends, filled with a lot of "a-ha" moments, as in "A-ha! so that's what Sargent and Sorolla were doing" and "A-ha! So that's why my paintings look nothing like Sargent and Sorolla." I now have lots to think about.
