Mini Palette Painting Workshop

A couple of weeks ago I got to take a two-hour workshop with Cynthia Herron. You may recall that I took a four-week painting class with Cynthia last month and it was divine. I've always admired Cynthia's abstract landscapes and I hungered to learn more about her palette knife painting techniques. This workshop nailed it. She started by having us just watch her paint, all the while she was talking about her process and method.

Then it was our turn! We had about 45 minutes to experiment and practice using the techniques we had just observed. I chose to work from a photo I took on my recent trip to New Orleans of the new levee along the Mississippi River.

A mere 45 minutes later, I had the beginnings of a painting that reminds me of my wonderful trip. Cynthia has given me some suggestions for were to go with this painting, and I'm excited to work on it in my studio.

This is the beautiful setting where all of this took place!

Final Class: Abstraction Through Simplification

Thursday night was the final class of four with Cynthia Herron creating abstract landscapes. You can follow the links back to the first class by going here. The series of four classes were some of the best I have ever taken - I learned so much and had fun, too.

A little critique before our lesson.



Cynthia did a wonderful demo for us.





I still have SO much work to do, but I've got some paint on the canvas, ready to receive more paint, more color, and more . . . . .



Parting shots of Cynthia's cozy little studio.




Success!



Post script
In our first class, I created a big yellow sun as part of our focus on Abstraction Through Distortion. I never warmed up to what I had created, so I finally covered it over and played around with a lot of black. It was pretty bottom heavy, so I removed all of that paint using alcohol, then applied a colored gesso, and did a nice little landscape that I was happy with. Just thought it would be fun to share how easy it is to cover something (again and again if necessary) to come up with something acceptable.

Class No. 3: Abstraction Through Texture

Tonight is my final class with Cynthia Herron (or is it? our little group is discussing some future options with this masterful teacher), so I wanted to get last week's class session posted.

Each week we gather in Cynthia's cozy little studio around her wood stove to critique and review what we did the past week (and hopefully we found time during the week to work on our pieces). Cynthia then gives us a lesson on the current week's topic before turning us loose to experiment. Last week's lesson was on texture: applying papers, mediums, and whatever else might provide interesting texture. For my main composition, I applied plaster, a thin band of cheesecloth, and some torn black and white paper. The evening in photos:









I did my homework during the week and this is what I'm taking for tonight's critique and feedback session.

Class No. 2: Abstraction Through Exaggerated Color

Class two with Cynthia Herron happened a couple of weeks ago (to see what we did in class one, click here). The most recent class involved some color theory, looking at the art of other artists, and then playing with color ourselves. Yeehaw, I love me some color.





I just keep telling myself it's a process. I got some initial paint down during class, then played a bit at the studio. I will fine tune it before class on Thursday night. As with all of my pieces, it is a work in progress until the final declaration is made: it is done.



Addendum.

So, I just couldn't warm up to the big ball of yellow in the piece from our first class. It was nice enough, but it wasn't me. So I started to rework the piece entirely and it is still not done, but I wanted to share a bit of the process from here to there . . . and beyond. Stay tuned for another update. For now, bye bye sun.