Still Life Painting Workshop Recap

I had a wonderful time teaching my still life painting workshop, graciously organized and hosted by M Gallery in Florida. We painted at Susan Foster's incredibly idyllic and perfectly appointed studio.

After blogging about all of my workshops over the years, it was an amusing switch to teach the workshop myself, and have my students do the blogging! Two of my students, Loriann Signori and Deborah Elmquist, both accomplished painters themselves, wrote several beautiful posts describing the process and philosophy I teach. Check out their links and enjoy their paintings!

The challenge of running a workshop based on the way I work is to condense what is usually at least a 60-hour process, down to 15 hours of demo time for me and 15 hours of painting time for my students. Therefore, I had each artist paint a teeny tiny painting, 5 x 7 inches. Even given the Florida humidity, which unexpectedly slowed the drying time for each layer, every single artist did a formidable little painting!

I had a truly enjoyable time, and I feel incredibly lucky that "work" for me is hanging out in a beautiful studio with a highly skilled group of artist students, all eager to learn.

During the week I also had the supreme pleasure of meeting two artists I have long admired, David Kassan and Susan Lyon, both of whom were also invited to Sarasota, Florida for demos, teaching and exhibition.

Below is the demonstration panel I painted during the workshop, it's 6x8 inches:

Pencil drawing blocked-in on trace paper or mylar

Pencil drawing transferred to the panel and refined.

"Open grisaille" or sometimes called a "wipe-out": raw umber and turp

"Closed grisaille", or "dead layer" painted with grays mixed with:
flake white, raw umber, ultramarine blue.

Full color, work-in-process. Would need another week to finalize!