Workshops

Glass

Representing glass in pastel is one of the most difficult surface textures to master.

In the morning, we will look at a clear glass vase and practise observing and portraying this illusionary see through surface. Then in the afternoon we will look at coloured glass, particularly green bottles and practise portraying these with our pastels.

By the end of the day, you will have much more confidence in portraying see through surfaces, which require extra observation in order to capture the mystery.

Landscape En Plein Air

A Summer series of standalone En Plein Air workshops, to give students the opportunity to work outdoors. Something which doesn't come easily to anybody!

There are many reasons why, such as lack of confidence because anybody can walk upto you and being overwhelmed because you can't decide what to focus on, as there's just too much to excite your senses.

These en plein air workshops offer a great opportunity to work outdoors as part of a group to encourage confidence.

Working outside as a landscape painter is hugely individual, because when we work from a photo all the dimensional problems have been sorted out by the camera lens. When we go outside, everything is 3 dimensional and we are the camera. We have to flatten everything onto a 2 dimensional surface, but we still have to make it look convincing, as if it is 3 dimensional.

The more you do, the more you will understand how your subject, whatever part of the landscape you are looking at, comes together. If you are there you can get up and get close to the plant, the trees, the water and really observe them and it's that level of observation, which allows you to understand your subject enough to represent it on a 2 dimensional surface. Hugely developing your concentration and observation skills to create an interesting composition.

Each workshop will take the same format, meeting at my Mind Tree Café studio then going to our venue either a 10 minute walk, or a 10 minute drive away. We will be able to share car journeys. Venues will include Roundway Hill, Caen Hill and Diamond Jubilee Wood, offering a variety of landscape subjects such as the locks, the water in the pounds, far reaching views to Oliver's Castle, into the valley across Rowde, trees and wildlife.

We will spend the morning outside learning how to build your resource material, taking photographs and making sketches in pen, pencil or charcoal and doing some quick colour sketches with pastel. I will encourage you to decide on the composition to use later, while you are taking the photographs, as this may influence your placement. The photographs will also provide a colour reference for you.

We will return to Mind Tree Café for lunch. Then spend the afternoon in my studio, focusing on one particular view from the resource material you gathered in the morning and working up a finished piece of work. We will work on your ability to use colour and mark making effectively to paint the textures of the morning's landscape. Showing you how having built up your own resource materials, your finished work has far more originality and interest.

Please Note: If it's raining, we will be indoors working on your favourite views. So please bring your own landscape photos to work from, to really see the importance of originality in your art.

Landscape Project

The idea here is to help you move your pastel painting onto the next stage, encouraging you to develop your own project and introduce more originality into your work.

Think about your personal passion in landscapes and choose a theme. What is your favourite element within a landscape? Maybe it's clouds, maybe it's trees. When you go for walk, what grabs your attention?

Then you need to gather together your resource material. So you will need photographs and sketches, which illustrate your theme. Maybe you have books or magazines on the theme. Or you might have been to an exhibition and been inspired by a particular painter. Perhaps you came along to one or more of my famous landscape painter workshops. All of this will be useful.

I would also like you to bring 2 pieces of your favourite work, which you have previously made. We can then discuss why you have enjoyed these particular pieces and this will help us develop and define your style.

You can tell me if you have a favourite technique or a particular technique you have tried and want to perfect. Perhaps there are certain paper surfaces you want to try. This is your opportunity to tell me what you want to achieve on your pastel painting journey now you are no longer a beginner.

I will help you put together a plan for the 6 weeks of the project, but we will keep it open enough to allow you to experiment. I'll be there as a facilitator, providing colour, paper and technique advice. In between the workshops, if you want to do any work and show me, I can provide a mini critique by email.

All your resource material must be yours, so it is unique to you and your own project. This is all about you finding and creating your own style. Then at the end of the 6 weeks you will have a body of work, which is totally original to you.

This promises to be a really exciting 6 weeks!

Pastel Techniques

This course is just as suitable as a refresher for an artist who hasn't touched their pastels for a long time or has always wanted to have a go at painting with pastels, as it is for an absolute beginner.

The idea of these workshops is to develop a student's dexterity and skills with pastels and a variety of papers.

During the course I will cover all techniques, basic to advanced and experimental mark making. Mark making being a fundamental building block in art and is how you begin to express emotion and movement.

We will explore scraffito, liquid/pastel under painting, blending and knowing when to stop to allow a pure mark to shine through, basic colour theory and when and how to use different pastel paper textures, including specialist papers for their expertly designed surfaces.

At the end of the course, you will have all the information on papers and techniques you need to start to practice on your own and be able to slot into any of my other workshops.

Colour Theory 1

When you are using paint you can easily mix your primaries and see how they make some secondary colours. Whereas pastels are all powder, so we have our colours made for us already.

But we still need to know what's cool, what's warm, what's light, what's dark & everything else. So really understanding the different emphasis of colour theory for pastels is a vital part of painting with and using them and is why I have developed this sequence of 3 full day workshops.

In the first workshop, we will look at how to identify colour and how to create it. For example we will look at something like the colour beige and if we imagine just our primary colours, a black and a white, how are we going to actually physically make beige?

We will explore a colour's temperature, tone and purity. Whether it's vibrant, dull, bright, subdued, saturated or a desaturated colour. Essentially, we will deconstruct the colour, so we know how to re-create it.

A great opportunity for beginners or experienced artists, who simply need a refresher, to gain, or renew your knowledge, experience and confidence in using colour, knowing its construction.

Included in the cost of the course is a set of 18 pastels. Primary, secondary and tertiary colours I have picked out from the colour wheel. There are 12 colours which make up the colour wheel and I have also included a black, a white and 4 greys to use throughout the course of 3 workshops.

The Colour Wheel set is a beautiful selection and will complement any pastels you may already have.

Colour Theory 2

An essential element of colour theory is colour relativity.

In this second workshop, among other practical exercises, we will observe a simple still life subject, experimenting with a variety of colour palettes to witness the changing relationships between the chosen colours.

Students will need to have attended the Colour Theory 1 workshop and we will use the Colour Wheel set of pastels from the first workshop.

Colour Theory 3

How do we make use of colour theory in our pastel painting practice?

In this third workshop, from your own photo or sketch, I will guide you through the process of using your knowledge of colour and technique to create a balanced and expressive piece of work, liberating you from the static procedure of simple copying.

This will open up your artwork generally for further development.

Students will need to have attended the Colour Theory 1 and 2 workshops and we will use the Colour Wheel set of pastels from the first workshop.

Landscape Artists

For this series of standalone Landscape Workshops, each will feature a different famous landscape painter.

We will look at each artist's unique way of observing and interpreting the landscape in order to experiment with our use of pastel mark making and colour palettes.

We will explore what is involved in developing your concentration and observation skills to produce an interesting composition and your use of pastels to paint the textures of that particular landscape.

We will also work on your ability to use colour effectively and be expressive in your paintings with your colour choices and mark making skills.

Please see the Workshop Calendar for details of which painter I am featuring at which workshop.

Pastel Session

This is a single 3 hour session intended to give you a taste of pastel techniqiues if you are a beginner or new to this medium, or to focus on a particular subject or techniqiue if you are a more experienced artist.

A Pastel Session is a fun idea for a birthday present or ideal to concentrate on for example learning or improving pastel mark making, landscape or still life.

Still Life

Still Life provides such a wonderful opportunity for painting, because there are everyday objects around us, wherever we are. A great passion to ignite in all artists!

This standalone single workshop is designed to provide a full day of uninterrupted observational Still Life practice.

I will set up an huge, colourful still life full of a variety of textures, shapes and surfaces to really get the inspiration flowing.

We can then zoom in to take a contemporary look at the passageways, spaces and shapes created.

Studying groups of objects in terms of lighting and colour, developing our artistic eye.

Exploring how to draw a collection of objects and their relation to each other within a composition and then how to complete the painting using pastels.