Day 2 at Studio Crescendoh learning about oil painting with Leslie Duke. So fun. I was excited to get back to it on day 2. We first went on a little foraging excursion looking for possible still life subjects.
Love Jenny's apron! Clearly lots of fun has been had while wearing it. (You can see her latest paintings here by the way.)
That weekend it was the city's annual día de los muertos celebration. (Last year I blogged about that here.) Pretty colors everywhere you looked.
I took a minute to really study what I love so much about Leslie's class demo from the first day. Such strong strokes, color blocking, more a suggestion of the leaves than detailed wisps. Such great energy and texture. Here's a closeup:
Isn't it delicious? Leslie described the consistency we were trying to create with our oils and mixing medium as icing, looks just like it to me!
Here is the persimmon she painted the first day while we watched in awe.
My pieces from day one getting worked on during day 2.
I got to work touching up my radishes. Adding some contrast, highlights, color and mostly changing the leaves to be more suggestive.
And then I tried to bring some life back to the persimmon.
Trying my hand at short blocks of color and more suggestive leaves:
Not quite icing, but getting closer.
Next up were the apples that were just begun the day before. Unfortunately, I seemed to paint a bit of the life out of them too. I liked them best at the end of first day.
Whenever I have the good fortune of getting back to these, I will add some more highlights, lowlights, and more interest to the background colors. That blue especially is much too flat!
My supplies. Here's my palette near the end of day 2:
I am a messy mixer, that's for sure!
While we were painting, Leslie began another painting, this time of a jar of thread. A student had requested something other than fruits and veggies. Leslie said that she was a little apprehensive about it, becuase for her, it's a very different thing, she wasn't drawn to it as a subject on her own. I loved that she reminded herself to trust her process and jumped in. It looks like the class is empty and she's painting at lunchtime, but we were all huddled behind her, watching intently.
Pretty awesome! Looks like a jar full of candy.
We would watch her, paint a little, watch her, paint some more. Heaven.
I had brought in a little branch of magnolia leaves and started to try to paint them. It was a big disaster and I ended up scraping off my board entirely. Class was nearing the end and I asked Leslie to begin on it herself, so I could see how I could have approached it. Again, I was having a hard time seeing the lights and darks and not just the all green tops and brown undersides of the leaves as one color, and how to be suggestive with the flower pod, not detailed. Leslie did point out that I was a little overambitious with such a subject, which made me feel better about the disaster I had made, and then began a new demo.
Oh, that's how! She had to stop here, but I loved it so much I bought the unfinished art. I love that it's a reminder of the day and a way for me to study the process, not just the finished piece. And the reduced price for an incomplete piece was nice too ;).
And suddenly, the day was over and a few signs from the weekend were all that remained. I thought it fitting that the day ended as colorfully as it began and snapped this photo.
I learned so much, and I am looking forward to trying my hand at oil painting again in the future. I am also very interested to see how this might impact some of my art journaling and acrylic painting...color blocking? attempting still lifes? smaller canvases?
Time will tell!
