A Hyper Intensive

The painting weekend could not have been better.  The planned demo for Friday evening was replaced by a show and tell critique of the paintings created on the way to the cottage by a few of us.  That seemed to provide a learning and a charge of energy which was already high.

We hit the ground running on the dock the next morning.  I did a short start up for a painting, then everyone spread out to set up and paint.  

You Get the Idea

Ready Set Go

The enthusiasm was such that lunch didn't happen until 2 pm as it started to rain.  So we did show and tell until the sun broke as a cool front rolled in.  

Road Side Learning

Then the painting hit high gear.  I put on the miles going from artist to artist spread out into nooks and crannies that caught their attention.  Nobody had any difficulty finding a motif to paint.  They kept moving and I kept walking.

Two Star Development

Antonina Continuing in the Rain

Early Colour for Donna

Monica Sticking with Brush Work

Lynda Showing Rita's

Then dinner around 9 followed by that show and tell again.  

Critique, Fun and Learning Style - yup. wet ones behind us on hard wood.

Many of the artists had been working at glazing in the studio where they did a painting in 3 months.  To their surprise they were doing two, three and four in a day!  More energy!  So lets paint before sunup.

Around 6:30 am

That turned out to be a blast and a beautiful one at that.  The light was changing in seconds.  Missed breakfast.  At the end, the parade of pizza boxes full of wet ones was impressive.

Pizza Pack Up

One group photo and we were off, but not before vowing to come back in the winter and paint from snow shoes.

Photo by Kelly

Some of the lessons learned; plein air puts you into the moment helping to capture the now,  photos just don't capture colour, value, or size, nature is ever changing and beautiful.  Finally the concept of learning to see started to evolve.

Before the week end workshop each artist selected a "chunk" to to work at.  For example, Donna took colour, and Monica took brush work.  These chunks were based on shapes, value, colour, paint quality, and edges.  A few of them wanted basic oil painting and basic plein air approaches.  Each of them set forth a concept for their paintings so I could help them go where they were interested in going.  This also made the critiques much more relevant.