"Maggie's Garden"
20" x 30" oil on canvas
"Down River"
16" x 20"
oil on panel
"Cliffs and Cactus"
9" x 12" oil on panel
Because of Rainy weather, the final day of the Randall Sexton Workshop
(day #3) was held indoors. Illume Gallery found the perfect spot for us!
It was well lit and spacious.
Randall demonstrated portrait painting by rendering a quick
study of Jimmy, one of the artists in our group.
Beautifully done!
We finished our afternoon by working on individual paintings.
Since we couldn't be outdoors, we worked from photographs.
Here's my final piece:
Today was day #2 of my 3-day plein air workshop with
Randall Sexton (sponsored by the Illume Gallery of Fine Art).
Sixteen of us headed over to Liberty Park in Salt Lake City,
hoping to not get rained out. Kathryn Stats (one of the students)
had her husband drive their 1952 Chevy over to the park.
We gathered around it and began to paint.
Simply put, it was a lot of fun!
Randall demonstrated his magic for us and blocked in the Chevy.
Here's his rendering of Kathryn's car:
I worked on my version of the Chevy for about an hour and a half,
then realized that the proportions were wrong. I scraped it off
and had another go at it.
Even though a car is just a mass of shape, value and color,
I found it challenging to paint! I think I was distracted by all the
details in the reflections. I didn't squint enough. My moment of
"aha" arrived when Randall came over and erased a bunch of
details in my piece to reduce the large shapes into simple
masses of color. This time I think I understood the concept!!
I'll work a little more on my car painting and see if I can lay
in a few strokes to get the background going. I'll post it here
when I'm finished.
"Autumn On The River"
9" x 12" oil on panel
Today was the first day of Randall Sexton's plein air workshop sponsored
by the Illume Gallery of Fine Art here in Salt Lake City, Utah.
It was fun to be a student again!
Because it rained, we stayed inside. Randall gave us a
demonstration using an image from his ipad as his subject.
It was the Union Train Station here in Salt Lake City.
Here's his palette...
And his image...
His Initial block-in (there wasn't time for him to finish).
So, instead of blathering on about all the cool things I learned today,
I'll just post a few notes and images for you.
My set-up:
Randall suggested that we premix the general colors of the big
shapes in our composition. Here's my palette.
He demonstrated how to block in in a tonal way by working
the shapes in his composition from the inside out. A linear
approach would be to draw all the shapes with lines and then
color them in (which is a habit I'm trying to break).
He suggested that we remember we aren't painting "things,"
rather we are painting the differences between things. This
means that along with drawing the form of an object, you should
also consider the negative space surrounding it and use negative
space to help carve out the shape of your object. I finally
"got this" about halfway into my painting.
Mr. Sexton's friendly personality contributed to the atmosphere
in the classroom. He is a wonderful instructor! Here's my
finished piece and now, I'm excited to see what tomorrow brings!