Painting Muscles

 It's great to have a chance to study with great artists.  Dot Courson presented a still life workshop with Lori Putnam recently.  Since  all ways of painting move us forward, I was glad (and lucky)  to attend this one.

The teapot study was my effort to use Lori's assignment to unify all elements with a dark wash, then selecting the warm/cool relationships. Lori  allowed an hour for each group of four artists to work on 4 arrangements on the second day.

refererence for the teapot study

reference for the big study

On the last day Lori's assignment had us learning to set up dynamics with a much more elaborate arrangement.  Groups of artists then painted what we arranged during the morning, using the approach  of a dark juicy wash, concentrating on the forward lights.   Out of the dark rich wash the light pattern was wiped away with a paper towel.

Lori was emphasizing edges and allowing the eyes to see lost edges into the dark rich background wash.   This was tricky, as each arrangement was well lit with a spotlight, but the lights in the room  were turned off so that we painted in the dark.     That kept this assignment not easier, but clearer , in that we were concentrating on just values and only the color in the lights from the spotlights.                                                       Photographing  in the lighting from the room was very tricky and my apologies for the glare and washed out look.              

here is another study from the second day - one of four ( you're not seeing my really bad ones). Lori had artists painting at least 4 for the two days, and one large one on the last day  !!!   With her encouragement we were empowered and prepared to tackle many new concepts.  


Here are two poor photos of Lori's demonstration painting on the second day from fresh roses:

underneath those lusciously painted roses Lori made a loose wash of red and green melded together in an abstract shape.   On top of that  the darkest areas (greens) were laid in with abstract shapes, then the varied warm and cool reds were set stroke by stroke without blending.


You'll always have a great experience if you have a chance to take a workshop presented by Dot Courson.   Studying with Lori was fantastic, expecially since both have such a busy schedule.