My Workshop at Painting Miles

I taught a 2 day workshop at Painting Miles in downtown Raleigh this past weekend and it was a blast! It was a small group, but that allowed us plenty of time to chat about art, artists, techniques and personal issues with our work. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting these wonderful students and hopefully they took a lot away from my instruction. We discussed the basics of composition and my block in method of subtraction during the first stages of a painting. We looked at the values in the early stages of a painting and how that will give us a roadmap for the later stages. I showed them how I add gold leafing to a painting and we discussed various ways to make sure that process stays archival. We mixed paint and discussed color harmony, and then also created a value study as an exercise and ultimately, we created two to three paintings each. I even showed them how I prep my panels with PVA and oil paint ground in case they ever decide they want to give it a try. It was a fun and information packed two days!