Two-colour tonal exercises, Water Colour, and an Oils workshop, Belfast

Here is Susan, who came over from Wales as part of my distance learning programme, for an Oils workshop. In this pic she is demonstrating how to squint through the little hole in the paper, to see what colour the white ball REALLY is...! Well, it's yellow, no its pink, no no it's blue, purple..ORANGE.!

Squinting...

Susan's first oil paintings. 

Tonal Value Studies -
I was very surprised, when I looked for imagery on line to show in demonstration to my students, that nothing came up under Two Colour Tonal. This is not a good sign.

From my sketch book

Painting using one or two 'colours' (or one colour, or 3)  is so important in helping to understand balance without the distraction of actual colour. The darks, lights and mid-tones are more important the the colours themselves. The painting above was done during a class, and I was very relaxed about it - it is not a Finished painting, it is an Observation of tonal balance. I'm not saying that it is correct either, but it's not far off. I used Payne's Gray and Yellow Ochre, which together give an interesting and complex array of greens. Mixing two colours doesn't equal three colours, it equals a hundred possibilities...

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

Portrait Drawing workshop, Belfast UK (also in Dublin, Ireland)

Student portrait drawings, using Compressed Charcoal. (Click on images to enlarge)

in progress... H. Johnston, student 

     Surprise surprise...! Excellent, LARGE work! (5 hours) H. Johnston, student.

Three days of hard labour, and the students had stopped begging for mercy and resigned themselves to the Graft. It probably didn't help much that I was chirping about the journey towards creative excellence being always slightly uphill, so that by the time you reach the top, you're just getting the idea that the journey goes on for...ever. How delicious..

In Progress, M. Hickie, student (including charcoal on her own forehead...)

Finished! 

These students had never done portrait drawing before. The pieces shown here were done on the third day of the course. Leading up to this, on the first two days they had done many studies of eyes, noses, lips, and all the Bits In Between. (thanks, Alexander, for being a great model) They left feeling amazed, delighted they'd worked so large (because the scale of every artwork is important) and...Exhausted. Perfect!

Next Workshops - Water Colour, Weekly Thursdays, and an extra Portfolio Course in August. Email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk for full details. 

Phone - from UK 07730 560 517 from Ireland 087 1330040