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Monday, May 29, 2017

Day 2 of my workshop

Hi there!  Well day 2 we woke up to sunshine! My old bones was happy to see that, lol. We jumped in our cars and headed off to a breathtakingly beautiful place,  huge rocks and a waterfall. We were in Waitsfield Vermont and this is a very common scene there.  

Mark set up next to the water and today he blocked in his whole canvas with thin transparent washes again.  He would lay down a color for a rock and wipe most of it off. He loves the idea of creating something out of very little paint. I have to say his gray washes did feel like rocks. I was so appreciative of where I was and of course just being co close to Mark while he worked.  I joked we are Mark groupies soaking it all up, even gasping sometimes at small changes in the painting, if your an artist you will understand I know. 

Mark has a YouTube video where you can watch a speeded up scene of him painting something similar to this.  Just enter Mark Boedges in the search bar. 

He makes every stroke count, no mindless painting. I would frequently see him mix a color and then wipe it in his palette knife as it wasn't exactly what he wanted.  As I mentioned yesterday he normally doesn't finish a painting on location. If you keep up with him you may know he has competed in plein air competitions around the country.  He said at first he felt it was helpful and then as time went along he felt it was hurting him. He worked until noon, looked finished to me but the painting is shown here and he worked on it that night and framed it, one of the workshop participants bought it. 

We sat up to paint after lunch and my plan was to paint the scene Mark had painted.  I struggled with those slick panels and my paint did not set up with the medium, I could have wiped it back to the white  canvas even at the end.  Excuses, right? Lol. Anyway I blocked mine in and my rocks didn't feel right to me,  this isn't a scene I ever get to paint and I was really out of my comfort zone.  I set it aside and blocked in a different simpler scene.  Really aggravating, I always say it's a bonus to come home with a decent painting from a workshop but it sure feels good if you do.  More soon. 

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