These exciting workshops are designed both to hone drawing skills by learning to look in different ways, and to challenge and re-animate ways of using water-based paint media. We always start by drawing – with the left hand (if normally right handed), looking at the shapes in between objects (‘negative shapes’), taking a line for a walk, drawing with eyes shut, anything to both loosen up and refine habitual ways of seeing. We start with simple line, move on to tone and finally to colour.
Working from initial marks, the painted image is allowed to evolve, disintegrate and re-emerge, rather than having a particular idea or motif in mind from the outset. Through sabotaging our habitual ways of working we allow the subconscious to surprise us, and the medium to shine without being constrained by what the picture is ‘supposed to be’. We learn to watch the unpredictable image as it emerges, and to respond to it. By experimenting we can really free ourselves up, and the techniques so learnt can be incorporated later into any genre such as landscape, still life or figure painting. Watercolour and gouache can be used as a precursor to the mixed media, and collage and monoprint are also very effective.
If there are people who have already been to one of these workshops, and need to develop their previous work, or want to do something slightly different, then they are free to do so. The negative shape drawing is, however, an essential ‘warmer up’ to any kind of painting.
I’m also doing some ‘special interest’ workshops, (see below) where we will start with drawing and then move on to a specific project. No previous experience is necessary.
Venue – Bryn Morris studio and (newly re-furbished!) barn
Fee £40 per day, 10 – 4.30, bring own lunch. Tea and coffee provided. 6-8 people.
Dates for 2011:
May Tuesday 3rd Mixed media
May Saturday 14th Painting and music. Here we explore the connections between these two arts, a subject which formed the basis of my PhD. Listening to music in different keys and by different composers, attempting to express their individual characteristics in colour and form. Looking at the abstract qualities which these arts share, for example line, tone, colour, composition, modulation and texture.
June Wednesday 1st Mixed media
June Tuesday 14th Watercolour Just transparent paint on white paper, but there is so much more to it than that. (And there are already a million books on how to do it).
This most subtle of mediums requires above all a fluency achieved through constant practice, a mixture of panache and control. We study some of the early masters, Turner, Girtin, Bonnington, as well as contemporary practitioners. Simple colour mixing, washes, glazes, resists (masking fluid etc.).
July Saturday 2nd Mixed media
July Friday 15th Colour Experiments with complementary colours. Hue and saturation. Colour theory/ exercises based on Johannes Itten, (Bauhaus) Baudelaire and Goethe. Studying and analysing the colour in master paintings, especially those with limited colour schemes – Velasquez, Braque. ‘Decorative’ colour – Marc and Matisse.
July Friday 29th Mixed media
August Tuesday 16th Drawing Some perspective drawing. Developing the ‘negative shapes’ by observing cows, sheep, trees, or the plethora of interesting objects in the barn. 5 minute drawings and longer studies, using line and tone. How does drawing differ from painting?
September Friday 2nd Mixed media
September Tuesday 20th The two sides of the brain. Some years ago I was forced to use my left hand for painting. It was a revelation, proving to me that the right hemisphere does offer an entirely different way of thinking and working. We develop and build on the ‘ right brain drawing’ with which we always start the workshops, and also look at philosophical backgrounds to this idea, (Ornstein, Stevenson) as well as Betty Edwards’ well known book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
October Wednesday 5th Mixed media
I could also do a 2- 3 day workshop during the summer: please get in touch if you are interested.
MATERIALS bring your acrylic paints and brushes and coloured inks, (not too many different colours) as well as ‘ rubber colour shapers’ (these can be bought from art shops) For drawing, good quality cartridge paper and SOFT pencils; for painting, offcuts of mounting card, (ask your framer) coloured paper for gouache, canvas boards or canvases, and primed paper (can be bought in pads). White gouache can be mixed with watercolour to make it opaque, and old kitchen pump sprays can be filled with diluted ink for interesting effects. Please contact me if you need advice.
Elizabeth Haines: 01437 532 498 or haines_studio@hotmail.com
