Last of the workshops for awhile

I gave a one day workshop in Haileybury today (about 2 1/2 hrs drive from here) on painting realistic eyes. The class did a great job. These are a couple of pics of the class and their results.

I'll be back to painting for myself this week... at last.

Sorry for the lack of updates

I know it has been forever since I've been painting and I really feel like I'm in withdrawal. I've had so many other things to deal with (mostly art related) as well as having to work. I have to teach another workshop on Saturday but I should be able to paint for myself after that.

This past weekend I was in Toronto attending meetings for the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour (CSPWC). I am the new Northern Ontario Director for the CSPWC and I have work to organize for them now as well.

I will get back to regular updates here as soon as I can.

Weekend workshop

I haven't been posting lately because I haven't been painting. All my time has been occupied (when not at work) by preparing for a workshop I taught this weekend. Loads of fun and everyone seemed to have a good time. Here are some photos of the group and a photo of the 12 paintings at the end of two days of instruction. They can now finish them at home if they like. Some of these people had never painted anything before!

Workshop painting finished

In the last step I softened the edges of the masked highlights, added more darks and more colour to the oranges, added a few more shadows on the cherries, darkened some of the shadows on the table, and finished the fine lines on details. I don't want to add any more steps because the students in my workshop have to be able to paint this over two days and I want them to have fun doing it.

step 6

For the next step it was just more of the same. More glazes of colour on the fruit and darker shadows. I have also removed the masking fluid from the fruit but haven't softened the edges of the highlights yet.

step 5

In the next step I added a wash of reds on the cherries, washes of both shadow colours and orange to the oranges, and softened a lot of hard lines.

step 4

I added another wash of darks on the lid and started picking out little reflections that give the illusion of reflective metal. I took off the masking fluid on the lid as well. I then added darks on the cherries in the glass. I started adding washes of colour in the metal bowl as well as the metal around the glass.