Workshop Day #4

Was too tired and wet to post last night. Yesterday was our final day of this wonderfulworkshop, and we were out on an old bridge painting SHAPES....only shapes. When Mary was finished and packing up, her painting flipped and fell into the water. The river was deep, moving, had no access and impossible banks, it started to rain ....so we watched as this white canvas floated under the bridge and down the river. Alas...detachment....we went to lunch and let all of our learnings sink in. The afternoon was filled with critiques and slides etc.

We have learned so much, have lots of exercises to take home with us, and have some very different understandings of the process. Hurray for painting with Ian again!

Day #3 Afternoon

We spent the afternoon in a little town called Aubern. The street were absolutely empty. We literally had the town to ourselves until about 5:30 when everyone came home. We were to walk around and find a design with a lot of overlapping shapes, and just paint it as shapes. Mary and I did many sketches first, which was highly constructive learning as to what worked and what didn't.

IAN ROBERTS Day # 3

Today we painted more shapes, layered shapes, to create depth and guide the eye. It rained in the morning and luckily we were in a park pavilion. The photographs are poor today - sorry. If only I could create instant brain pathways and remember and implement all that I learned. The sad part is that I have been told this information before...so I am learning it in layers. Seems like the mind knows one thing and the hand does something different.......

IAN ROBERTS WORKSHOP

Day two of the Ian Roberts Workshop in Goderich Ontario. It has been hard work, lots of critical exercises to match colour for value, intensity and temperature, painting by rectangles only in order to leave out all unnecessary detail. Left brain overtaxed, right brain tries to cope. This was my rectangle study this morning. The afternoon painting started strong, then showed signs of tired and finally areas of exhaustion. All wonderful though, and so powerful for improvement.

Train Trestle

Aiming to paint boats today, Mary and I went to the local Marina but opted for a shady spot under a big willow tree. Our aim was to come up with a composition that was design driven....especially since we are going to a workshop with Ian Roberts in a few days. Since it was a last minute decision and all of my supplies were already packed, I took minimal - and quickly grabbed only one brush - a filbert. What was I thinking! It was a challenge to get the roof lines. A flat brush and a palette knife are essentials.

Driftwood Park

Today was one of those days that Mary and I just hit the road, investigating new painting locations. We had ideas that were closer to home, but ended up following the Ottawa River all the way to Stonecliffe. There were a lot of beautiful vistas, but they were either along the highway or private. We did find a wonderful provincial park and painted by the boat launch.

A friend had asked me what I had learned from repeating the last painting on location. I thought about that while away to Victoria's graduation. The answer really came while painting this one - I learned that I fiddle and fuss too much, and really want to paint more shapes with just definite simple strokes. So that was my aim for today.

Turtle Eggs

It was cool and windy today, and Mary and I set out to paint clouds. But we gravitate to a little river that we had seen last week, and decided to paint it, with cloud reflections. We painted the same scene twice, for the learning of what we would do different.

Humming

My excuse list is long as to why I have not been painting much lately, but it does not feel good to be away from it. My easel and brushes feel silent. A void forms. And then I even catch myself a-voiding the studio. What is with that? So tonight I just activated this emptiness and got it all humming again. Intention, focus...GO