Mt Barker painting workshop

Last weekend I hosted a painting workshop for members of Mitchell House in my home town. We had a great day and there was some terrific work done.

I had members choose just three colours - a "red", a "yellow" and a "blue" - plus white, from their own sets of oils or acrylics. Then everyone followed along as I painted a karri forest scene. The idea here was to shift the emphasis from colour to tone. Instead of everyone trying to get the exact same reds or browns or greens, they used their own limited palette to match the tones in my demonstration painting.

It's too easy to get bogged down in trying to match colours when tone is what sets the foundation of a work.

Here's my demo painting from the workshop.

I used French ultramarine, cadmium yellow deep and permanent crimson in my demonstration (I saw some wonderful results with burnt sienna as the "red" and yellow ochre as the "yellow"). My painting is on a Fredrix 10x14" (255x355mm) canvas board and was done almost entirely with just one large (approx 2cm wide) synthetic, chisel-edged brush. I used a tiny amount of odourless solvent as my "medium".

I have a little more to say on the ideas covered in my workshops in my article from a similar workshop I did last year.

I'm available to do workshops or demonstrations throughout the Great Southern, from Walpole to Kojonup, Katanning and Albany. Enquiries are also welcome from outside the region. If you have a group interested in a painting workshop, drop me a line at adolphin@westnet.com.au

I work in oils but several students have used acrylics with great success.

Examples from previous oil painting workshops:

Here are some of my demonstration paintings from previous workshops.