April 2019 Munsell Colour Workshop
Dates: April 8 – 12th 2019
Venue: Belfast Academy of Realist Art
Cost: £600 (Around USD $775, depending on conversion rate when you pay)
Accommodation is not included. Belfast is a great place to stay with plenty of air B&B’s etc.
If you’re interested, please click the link below and Julie and I will contact you with more details. Places are limited so don’t wait too long!
More than anything else, colour is responsible for holding artists back from making real progress in their work.
If you spend time knowing a colour you want but being unable to mix it, that’s time wasted that could have been spent on making better paintings.
If you find yourself staring at colours wondering what that colour really is and repeatedly getting it wrong, you’re being held back by colour.
If you struggle with getting the colours of shadows right, with making something appear real and three-dimensional in your paintings, then a basic skill of realist painting is missing.
That skill is understanding colour.
Why Munsell?
It’s a surprising approach to colour. It seems almost scientific at first.
And I think that when people first come across it, it throws them a little. Because we’re so used to thinking about colour in very vague and mostly emotional terms.
So when someone starts to wonder what colour things really are, and wants to try to translate those colours into paint, this vagueness obscures something that is, in fact, rather straight forward – if only we can find our way through the fog.
Colour isn’t hard
If you’re a realist painter – by which I mean work which reflects the visual phenomena of our world for at least part of its meaning and effect – then understanding colour is paramount.
This is where Munsell, and the specific way I’ve learned to apply it, can find a straight and clear path through the confusing melange that we’ve been taught.
The most immediate problems of colour that I see people struggling with are these:
- Mixing colour
- Replicating the colours you see
- Using colour to show form
These things are what I consider to be the foundation of good colour. They must be understood. Not just theoretically, but practically, on the palette and in the painting.
They stopped being serious problems for me a long time ago. But I struggled with them just as much as everyone else at the start.
As soon as I started using Munsell, together with a simple but effective way of accurately judging the colours I saw, I knew I’d found a way to solve the biggest colour problems that were holding me back.
Gently evangelical
These words were recently used about me by one of the attendees of a workshop on colour I gave in Belfast at the end of last August.
And it’s true, I am evangelical about it. Because using Munsell has not only solved my own most pressing difficulties with colour, I’ve seen it do the same for the people I’ve taught.
So what is it? Why is it so effective?
At its heart, it’s a way to practice getting colour right.
If you continually practice getting something wrong, you just get very good at getting it wrong.
What Munsell does is give us a way to practice getting it right. And when you add an effective feedback mechanism that lets you check your results objectively, you’ve got a really effective way to learn.
What will you learn at the Munsell workshop?
What I promise to give you is a simple but very effective method, together with the tools you need so you can go away and practice colour effectively on your own.
A method that will allow you to:
- Mix colour reliably and without frustration
- Replicate the colours you see exactly
- Use colour to show form effectively
I want to give you a method, instead of recipes because ultimately, that will teach you more about colour than watching a hundred painting demos.
Because good colour is about knowledge and understanding. My colour workshops are designed to give you what need to be able to develop those things effectively on your own.
April 2019 workshop details
Dates: April 8 – 12th 2019
Venue: Belfast Academy of Realist Art
Cost: £600 (Around USD $775, depending on conversion rate when you pay)
Accommodation is not included. Belfast is a great place to stay with plenty of air B&B’s etc.
If you’re interested, please click the link below and Julie and I will contact you with more details. Places are limited so don’t wait too long!
I know this is quite a commitment for you
It’s an effort to travel for a workshop, I know. And there’s cost involved too.
But look at this as an investment in your future as an artist, and the cost and effort begin to make sense.
Understanding colour means being able to paint. It means going from struggling in the dark, not quite knowing what’s wrong but knowing something is, to being free to consider what really matters about painting: finding your voice, expanding your possibilities, making something beautiful, connecting with people, even turning professional.
If something as major as colour is holding you back, then it’s hard to make much progress at all.
This method is really about removing roadblocks to your progress as an artist.
I think that’s worth a little investment. It certainly was for me.