Summer workshops 2023 with Julie Douglas

Lovely workshops with Julie Douglas Summer 2023
If you would like to immerse yourself in creative learning, there are a few workshops on offer this summer in the BARA studio. With sessions running from two  to five days, these courses allow you the time and space to learn intensively and push your skills to a new level. Workshops include 'drawing the portrait' (info at the following link, which takes you to a full description and dates) 

http://juliedouglasdrawingpaintinglearning.blogspot.com/2023/04/portrait-drawing-workshop-with-julie.html

and another workshop 'painting the portrait in oils' (info on the link below, which takes you to a full description and dates)

http://juliedouglasdrawingpaintinglearning.blogspot.com/2023/04/portrait-painting-oils-workshop-with.html

 Also on offer - pastel seascapes, kids class and a 'clinic for all your unfinished paintings!'

Dates are not set in stone so if you want to attend something and the dates don't suit, please do get in touch. 

Sat 15 July - kids drawing class £30

July 17 - 21st Portrait drawing £500

July 24th - 28th Portrait in oils £500

July 31 - Aug 1st - pen and watercolour botanicals £200

Aug 2nd - 3rd Pastel seascapes £200

Aug 17 - 18th ‘painting clinic for all your unfinished paintings’. £200

Aug 21 - 24 - Portrait drawing £400

For info please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 
Classes are in the studio in Comber. 

Portrait drawing workshop with Julie Douglas, 2023

 

There are many facets to drawing portraits, from capturing the 3-dimensionality of the head, to proportion, creating atmosphere and understanding how to guide the eye of the viewer. This workshop will help you create something which looks alive and dynamic, to capture gesture and movement, creating a believable likeness and an empathetic rendering of the face.

             

Over 5 days we will look at the head from all angles, helping you to understand the shape through tones and shadows, using pencil. We will look at the form of the head as well as the individual features, working through a series of projects until we reach a full portrait study. We work using many exercises, rather than just one and mostly from photographic reference. 

We will use a variety of visual aids, become familiar with the order of work, and make great efforts to move away from our preconceptions of how to produce a portrait. The workshop is designed to create a relaxed, informative and focused working environment for all skill levels. 

In other words, we will retrain your eye so you ‘see’ freshly, and create new understanding with positive and successful results! This workshops is backed up by several demonstration videos which you can watch over and again at home. They include an extensive explanation of comparative measuring, which is important to grasp. 

With lots of thorough demonstrations and time given to each individual student, your portrait drawings will improve and you have many opportunities to ask questions. Julie has written and e-book of illustrated notes to accompany this workshop. 

Dates - July 17th - 21st  and also  August 21st - 25th

Cost £450.00. Materials list provided upon booking. Spaces are limited to a maximum of 8 students.  For more information please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

If you would like to do this workshop but are unable to do these dates please get in touch. 

Julie Douglas is an award winning artist with 30 years teaching experience under her belt, both at home and abroad. She is respected for her ability to bring out the best in students in a friendly and positive way. 

She published a large drawing and painting manual in 2017 which is fully illustrated using her own and her students artworks, and is currently writing two more books, one on portrait drawing and the other on oil portraits. She teaches weekly drawing and painting classes from her studio as well as longer workshops. 

Portrait Painting (oils) workshop with Julie Douglas 2023

This five day workshop guides you through the process involved in painting the portrait. We will look at the structure of the head, and do several studies in colour as well as black and white. 

We will practice colour mixing to give you confidence as well as some small colour studies. We will use different models, from photographic reference. From learning how to get the right proportions, to blocking-in and building up in layers, to working alla prima. 

There will be lots of demonstrations with individual guidance and feedback throughout. 

The workshop is designed to create a relaxed, informative and focused working environment for all skill levels. The core of the lesson will be based on drawing, values, edges, composition and creating life-like skin tone colour. 

Colour study

Colour study (left) and work in progress

Above - drawing study and colour study

Dates - July 24th - 28th  and August 21st - 24th

If you would like to do this workshop but are unable to do these dates please get in touch. It is suitable for all levels of experience due to the nature of the exercises. 

Cost £450.00. Materials list provided upon booking. Spaces are limited to a maximum of 8 students.  For more information please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

Julie Douglas is an award winning artist with 30 years teaching experience under her belt, both at home and abroad. She is respected for her ability to bring out the best in students in a friendly and positive way. 

She published a large drawing and painting manual in 2017 which is fully illustrated using her own and her students artworks, and is currently writing two more books, one on portrait drawing and the other on oil portraits. She teaches weekly drawing and painting classes from her studio as well as longer workshops. 

White flowers - lines and gladioli, chalks and oils, students artworks

At the moment, I am using colour as the theme for my oil painting classes, and recently the choice was...WHITE. I decided to have white flowers as reference, and headed to Ikea to pick up some lilies, though I was seriously diverted by the gladioli, so bought some of those too. They look rather tremendous at the bottom of my stairs! 

Jug of fakes!

I wouldn't usually go for fake flowers, but as I wanted students to work from life, this was a good solution as they wouldn't wilt (the flowers, not the students!).

The lovely finished painting by Julie B

I started by clamping each stem to the boards on the easels, then moved the lamps around to create as much light and shade as possible. I wanted to have plenty of variation, with only a limited amount of unshaded white. This meant that everyone had lots of opportunity to paint a multitude of different 'whites'. 

 

Charcoal study and finished painting by Ruth T

 

For the first session, all students did a tonal study in grey and white compressed charcoal, on tinted card (apart from Sara, who did a lovely colour pencil artwork instead).  

Gorgeous coloured pencil on tinted card, by Sara C

Doing a preliminary study gives us the space to understand the subject, in the manner of solving a puzzle, and helps iron out some of the tricky pitfalls, without the added difficulties of dealing in colour. 

A delicious pastel tonal study by LM

Students had up to three further sessions to complete an oil study of their flower. 

A-M's home set-up showing the lily clamped to her board on the right, with the underpainting on the left. 

Lovely pastel tonal study by Bronagh B

Dramatic tonal study by PC

Look at the difference a strong background colour makes to the perceived value of the white petals. Lovely painting by Marie P

The most dramatic paintings were the ones which had a strong background. This meant that the different tones and shades within the petals looked subtle and pale - when the background was also pale, the petals risked looking overly colourful. Great work, with excellent amounts of suffering in the name of art!! 

For info on workshops please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

Julie's studio is above the pop-up shop in lovely Comber - 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Julie+Douglas+Art+Courses,+Belfast+Academy+of+Realist+Art/@54.5504618,-5.7486225,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x48610b29599d173d:0x3095b2d4c8c4e7c1!8m2!3d54.5504587!4d-5.7460422!16s%2Fg%2F11f5q8zld9

A little foray into Pastels - trees on tinted paper.

I rediscovered the joys of colour pastels during a two-day pastel workshop that I held in the summer.  The students embraced the challenges of the chalks, and enjoyed the effects particular to this medium, including their tactile nature. Getting the hands dirty!

Students on the workshop

Some student studies from the first day

I  fell in love with the immediacy of the chalks and decided to do a few more drawings myself after the workshop, to see how far I could push them. I hadn't done any tree paintings for a while (I love trees but find them so challenging that I can only do one or two per year,,,,) so thought it would be interesting to see how they would turn out, in pastels. 

The start! Rough and general, not specific.

I chose to work on grey paper, size A3. I began by gently marking where I wanted the tree trunks, drawing them lightly in lilac, as bold structure-lines breaking up the page. I then roughly blocked in the contrasting tones, with particular attention to the brightest areas so as to retain the clean lights. 

Close up of the textures

Once the big tones were blocked it, I revisited adding detail using shorter strokes. I learnt a great deal, about how much (or how little) layering the pastels accepted, and how some looser areas help direct the viewer's gaze. It was satisfying, interesting and frustrating, in equal measure. It took about 4 days at the easel. 

The finished artwork - 'Light Through the Trees at Shaw's Bridge'

Autumn colours. 

For the next tree-scape I chose a blue paper, and marked in the trunks first, as previously, keeping the sunny-side of the trunks white and the shadow-sides cool blue and purple, which contrasts vividly with the folks and browns. 

For info on workshops and weekly classes please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

Cold!!

It's been a cold cold winter, and even with the heating on, the studio is fairly chilly. But my wonderful students, they wrap up with more layers, and keep on keeping on! 

For the first time in all my years of teaching, the studio is full of blankets for putting on laps - and it's cold enough that no one scoffs! A blanky is a lovely thing!

 

Charcoal and oil wipe out technique, gladioli and wild garlics

Hoorah, the buds are peeping out and spring is trying its best to appear!! So my eye has been attracted to plants. For the first time in my life, I bought some artificial flowers, so that my oil painting students could paint lilies without having to see them wilt. The only creepy thing is that the lilies themselves were fairly identical.. but they served an excellent purpose. I also succumbed to some rather splendid stems of artificial gladioli, and did a charcoal study as part of my demonstration. 

Previously, I drew some wild garlic, photographed while on a trip to Cavan with friends. We walked down a rarely-used path and the sides were banked with vast swathes of wild garlic - the aroma was wonderful. 

I did a charcoal study first, see demos below, then an oil painting. 

I began the oil painting in the same way as the charcoal, by loading the canvas with raw umber paint, wiping out the light areas, adding more ray umber where needed and wiping out again. It's a lovely soft process, allowing the work to remain blurry and unfocussed in a different way to a purely additive technique. 

After the underpainting, I painted over it with a Grisaille...

 

...then painted over the grisaille in colour. 

 

Below, the finished painting, with two layers of colour, over the Grisaille. 

For info on workshops email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

 

The eyes have it... or not, in this case!

 It's always nice when a student asks to try something new, or confessed a secret desire for a subject that they have not yet tried. So I was pleased when my student Paul asked if we could do a portrait using water colour. But rather than a full portrait, I decided we should breakout down to a manageable starting point, and concentrated on drawing (first) the lower part of the face. In other words, we left out the eyes... 

The first stage of my demo, showing the drawing develop. 

Left - a simple wash all over, Right a bit more colour on the lips

finished demo. 

The point of the exercise was to demystify painting the face. Putting a drawing down first really helps. Below you can see some student artworks, from Ann-Marie, Nichola, Linda and Alison. Delicious!

NOT putting the eyes in made the subject feel much less daunting. Once the eyes are included, you really feel an obligation to the person being studied. 

However, Liz McM took the plunge, with great success... 

Liz McM, who laves drawing faces but has a slight allergy to watercolour. A lovely study! 

For info on classes and workshops, gift vouchers of my book,  please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

or see website 

www.juliedouglas.co.uk