The first session of the Spring Flowers and Still Life workshop will be here on:
Monday 15th March
at
6PM UK time (11AM Pacific, 2PM Eastern)
What we’ll be doing
We’ll taking an approach to drawing out three subjects which emphasises form.
Download the reference photos below, and either print them out or have them on a separate screen to the one you’ll be watching the live session on. If you can have the subjects on a tablet, say, next to your easel and the live session itself on a laptop or similar, then you’ll be really well set up to paint along.
You can, of course, just watch the live session and go through it later.
What you’ll need
No pencils!
Seriously, I want you to draw with a brush, as if you were blocking out a painting before starting.
This is important because it gives you practice with brush handling as well as learning to look at the subject from a point of view of the form first.
You should only need one brush for this session, but it needs to be a small-ish synthetic flat. I would recommend about 1/4 inch, and it will be most useful if it can flatten down to almost a blade-like edge. A hairy, splayed brush is very difficult to draw accurately with!
Painting surface is up to you, but make sure it’s fairly slick. Don’t use canvas unless it’s been prepared with a slick ground, like an oil ground. I’ll be using an ampersand panel, 8 x 10 inches.
The reference photos are that aspect ration, and are also sized to print out at 8 x 10 inches.
There are three drawings to do, but I’ll only be using one panel – I’ll be wiping each drawing out once it’s done and then reusing the panel. You can of course keep your block-ins if you want to, but you’ll need three painting surfaces.
Even though we’re drawing out, we’ll be working into a couch – a thin layer of medium. So you’ll also need some linseed oil and solvent (turps or gamsol is fine). This will mean that we’re working with the same materials and method that we’ll use for the paintings themselves.
I’d also advise titanium white, ivory black and raw umber so that you can mix a near-neutral for drawing out. You could just use iether black and white or raw umber and white though.
We’ll also be gridding the painting surface before we start, I’ll be doing mine mostly by eye, but it’s fine to use a ruler if you’d prefer.
This session will probably be around two hours long. We usually take a 10 minute break on the hour. Everyone needs tea!
