Oil Painting workshop Belfast - the colour in White

This weekend I had a lovely workshop in Belfast, which included an American lady who flew over from Holland, and an Austrian lady who drove up from Carlow. None were new to oils, but some had little experience of drawing, so we spent the first morning on drawing exercises. Many painting students resign themselves to this, with reticence - but ALL experienced a few Lightbulb moments, which is a joy to watch, when they realized that not only is drawing a vital part of the painting process, but its fun, and yes, we can all do it.

In fact, the Lighbulb moments continued all weekend, and on Sunday I decided to move on to a more difficult exercise, a white ball surrounded by coloured papers. We used a piece of grey paper with holes cut in it to isolate colour - and all were amazed at how colourful white is...

Colour study by B.Engl, student

One student surpassed herself - when she looked through the hole and saw bright yellow on the white ball, she couldn't wait to start painting and said, I'm so EXCITED..! Well, me too!! In fact, once they got started, I began to feel a bit left out. tsk!

                                                       Studies by J.Simms,  student

 

Study in progress by M. Forshee, student

This exercise is much harder than it looks, and illustrates very quickly to the student that it appears that we can't believe our EYES,who'd have thought there'd be so much COLOUR?  If we only looked more frequently with our eyes wider open, we'd know that there's so much MORE to SEE. And that truly, it IS exciting. Be Alert, be Open, be Aware and you'll See everything. It's there all the time, you just have to Look.

Colour study by M.Forshee, student

After this we moved on to cloth, and the enthusiam progressed into concentrated silence, a mixture of Horror, Huffing, and, well.. Hoping, I think! Fabulous work, a lovely weekend. Thanks. 

Next Up - weekly Drawing and Painting classes, Belfast, Monthly Monday Killaloe, BYOB Mondays, Belfast, Art for Teenagers and Portfolio Course, Co Clare.

 For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

oil painting workshop..

I did an Oil Painting workshop over the weekend in Dublin.. The prep began on Friday with a visit to St George's Market in Belfast to see what colourful fruits I'd not be able to resist.. I was after artichokes, but they weren't colourful enough this week... And sometimes that's good, as it means I have to spend a bit longer wandering, looking, pondering and rejigging my thoughts. I'd not been on a Friday before and my Usual Veggie stall wasn't there, oh shame. But there was a bigger stall in the middle, and wow, the colours... I was only feeling a little bit disloyal, when who should pop out from behing the parsnips, but My Veg Man, same stall, different spot! And I'm afraid he knows me by now, and before I knew it, he was walking me around by my elbow in case I'd missed something fabulous. Purple and green you want, he says - extolling the purples in the aubergines (not today...) or how's about a cabbage? (nah....). And as I filled up my bag with oranges and plums, I noticed that he looks like... Tom Cruise!! Perhaps I should ask him to model for the next portrait class..?!

My students worked tirelessly, and produced fabulous paintings, seemingly without pain! The table got messier by the moment, the coffees went cold and hardly any paint got on the clothes... Just on the hands and elbows and noses instead. And the glasses - one student confessed that she was worried about her vision after the first day, and everything looked a bit misty -  till she realized that she had a fingerprint of white paint on her specs... 

Next Up - Water Colour workshop, then Intensive Portfolio Course. 

email: julie@juliedouglas.co.uk for info