Mark Boedges workshop

Hi Friends, well I am back from my workshop with Mark Boedges in Vermont. First let me say Vermont is beautiful, so green with perfect farms and mountains everywhere.  I think I will spread this post out over maybe three times as it will be just too much for one post. This was a dream of mine to do this, I LOVE Marks work. This was a five person intensive plein air workshop and it was really about him teaching us his process.  He is slow and meticulous and says he doesn't finish anything plein air. Just to be hanging out with Mark watching him and paint and listening to his thought process as he paints was amazing. 

Day 1, we met out under a shelter on the first day as it rained all day and never made it up to 50*, it really crept into you, brrr.  Each day Mark would demo up until noon when we broke for lunch. He uses Turp when he paints outside. He starts with thin transparent washes and the Turp helps it set up quicker. I work in water mixable oils and have for a few years, he wanted us to work on a oil primed surface so I purchased a medium made for the water mixable oils to thin my paints and stayed out of the water as I was using a oil primed surface as he wanted. Hard to make changes in your substrate and materials while attending a workshop. He focused on the side door and stairs of the inn after he put a wash on his panel.  He showed us how he painted Windows, he paints the glass and that creates the mullions.  The red addition on the end wasn't actually attached but he wanted to demonstrate his window technique again. This small demo took him four hours with time out to talk about his materials and answer questions etc., so maybe three hours in total. After lunch we set up and tried to find something else to paint from under the shelter and it kept raining, not the best conditions. I painted part of a red barn and tried out painting Windows his way, I wasn't excited about what I was painting and ended up wiping it off, that really doesn't bother me though.  Day one ended and I headed off to warm up, things got better on day 2.  I have attached a few photos from day one and his finished demo.  I'll be back.