Another great day at the workshop. We did a lot more painting today, but things started off with an hour of David doing a demo. He picked up where he had left his painting off from yesterday. Very interesting as he demonstrated more technique and color strategies for the support cast of objects. I learned another volume of painting secrets, well secret to me at least, and was able to apply many things immediately to my painting later in the day. Watching David create one of his signature compositions before my very eyes was worth the price of the workshop alone.
We spent more time working on our paintings today than the first day. I spent a lot of time working slowly and carefully with the painting knife, never picked up a brush today. After 5 hours of painting I started to get much more comfortable with the painting knife, getting a feel for how to manipulate the paint on the surface of the board, as well as gaining more comfort in knowing where the paint was on the knife and where it needed to be on the knife for tricky angles.
David continued to work the room constantly during our workshop today. I spent numerous sessions of 1on1 time with him as we worked through some of the challenges in my painting, of which there are many. He told me that I was tackling a very difficult subject on many fronts – the water pitcher is hard to do b/c it’s reflective, has a wide range of values, the shape is tricky, and the coloring is far from straightforward. No better time to dance out of my comfort range and skill level. Needless to say, David was willing to demonstrate solutions to me directly on my painting.
The lighting in the studio is great for our painting work, but it’s awful for taking pictures of the work. I’ve posted my progress below, but will try to get a better shot tomorrow with some decent lighting. It has a long way to go, but I’ve already learned so much that it’s hard to believe it’s only been 2 days.
Day 3 we shift gears to a new composition, so I’ll have to finish my first knife painting back home later this month.
Art Bern 