No paintings to post today but i wanted to write about the workshop i'm taking this weekend with Luana Luconi Winner winnerstudios.com - check out her awesome figurative and portrait work. she has won international awards for her stuff and she's an NC treasure. she trained in chicago, new york, and italy and does some mindblowing stuff. so cool to have that kind of talent so close (raleigh)
i found out she was teaching at Jerrys Artarama on the same day i was doing a half day demo. so i signed up for the two day workshop on the figure drawing/painting class she was teaching.
i'm out of my element for sure, but i dont mind. learning is always happening outside "the box" or comfort zone. i know my students are experiencing it when i take a studio painter into windy, buggy, noisy, and oftentimes uncomfortable conditions, outside plein air painting. i know they are like fish out of water but i tell them thats how they'll learn to do it..... by doing it, even tho' theyre not in their cushy studios with the temp just right, some mellow jazz playing, a bathroom steps away. i dont want to get graphic and go into what i do when i'm downtown painting and no businesses will let you use their facilities halfway thru a painting. these are the things you have to have planned out when you know that youre going to be painting outside every minute of every sunny day. so i understand when they dont want to leave the studio and theyre trusty photos. they dont want to feel "out of sorts."
this is how i feel this weekend. she has us drawing with vine and compressed charcoal and chalk on paper. i havent done that in 30 years since i was a student at Virginia Commonwealth taking freshman figure drawing classes. i want to use a brush. i want to use paint and color, i want to use a medium i'm used to, i want to be outside, not cooped up inside when its sunny and 70 outside. well.... for me to learn what i need to learn i need to do what i'm told. i trust her. and when its all said and done, my figure painting will be better for it.
i think this is what learning is all about. trusting the process enough to let go of whats comfortable and not always doing what you know (or think you know). as i said... learning is always done outside of that "comfort zone".
hopefully my paintings of people from here on, will make it all worthwhile. and thanks Luana for being gentle :D
6 comments:
Mike,
Many thanks for a great demo at Jerry's yesterday. Very informative and engaging. You are a natural teacher.
Gabriele
Hi Mike...great post. Good luck with the workshop...can't wait to see the results in your future works. Hang in there! Michael.
gabriele
thanks for the kind words. i love to teach and especially to take the "mystique" out of painting. anybody with the least amount of interest can paint if they know how its done.
mike-thanks for checking in.
i learned alot and it'll give me some confidence to add more figures to my urban scenes and landscapes. also want to paint the occasional beach babe too LOL
Mike, great advice about not continuing to mess with a piece. Me, I always have the strong urge to do "just one more thing" if it's within my sight...I gotta move 'em out by hook or crook so I don't keep going back to it.
Thanks.
Steve
Oops, meant to post this below the other picture. Reckon I need one more (or maybe one less) beverage.
steve
if you dont allow yourself the luxury of going back and going back you'll leave them alone. just remember that if nobody but you will know you did it then dont do it! knowing when to quit is very important to the feel of the piece and also.... if you keep going on it (especially if it was started outside) you have the tendency to mess it up by changing the values, temperatures etc. because youre no longer observing it directly. so unless its a huge thing that needs fixing... fiddle with care!
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