'A 2 day ZOOM workshop mixing/making/working with the beautiful and evocative colour BLUE...Why blue, which blue, how blue? The colour blue in painting is rich in symbolism, meaning, emotion: working with our own subject, over the 2 days in the workshop we’ll explore the qualities, differences, and uses of blue in our paintings'
A celebration of 'Blue' in our latest 2-day online painting-workshop...
As a way to explore the qualities and difference of the colour 'blue', in the workshop the 10 artists were asked to produce a 'blue' version of one of their own paintings, making studies in advance. The workshop began with a Powerpoint presentation of the history and uses of blue in painting with a selection of works including Titian, Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Helen Frankenthaler, Peter Lanyon & William Scott and several of my own blue paintings.
In the demonstration and group-exercise that followed, the objective was to find contrast when mixing a range of blues covering the canvas: finding difference using colour-temperature, tone, texture & transparency.
Demonstration & finished painting
A second demonstation followed, introducing the subject, in my case, The Ship Inn, Porthleven, which had appeared in a couple of my recent paintings, but painted out. The artists then began their own paintings, introducing their subject onto their blue canvases. The discipline for the day was to work exclusively with blues, working on contrast and special blues found in the colour-exercise. The afternoon was taken up with one-to-one tutorials, with the artists emailing images of their paintings in advance to discuss, and a further demonstration.
Jenny Kellington
Jane Crane
On Friday, the rules were relaxed with aceent colours now permitted! The day progressed with tutorials and further demonstrations, with many of the artists working on a second painting. With ZOOM, of course, the artists were able to listen in on tutorials and conversations about other paintings, which many found useful. In the afternoon, we had a couple of hours 'silent working-time', with the artists looking to advance or even resolve their paintings. The final versions were emailed to me to put together in a presentation for an invaluable Group Critique at the end of the day.
As you can see in the gallery, some fabulous 'moody' interpretations emerged, showing an extraordinary range of blues. Hats off to the artists!
Barry Kellington
ARTISTS COMMENTS:
'The format of the workshops is really effective. Ashley's illustrated talks are very helpful, based on lots of research and giving plenty of source material to shape ideas. Individual tutorials are a rare luxury in online workshops and help each artist with personal development.'
BERYL HAWKER
'I loved it and found the whole thing very inspiring. Best bits were my tutorials and watching Ashley work on his painting – it will encourage me to be braver.' SUE PRYOR
'We both enjoyed the workshop and found it very satisfying and really useful to carry some of the techniques over for future work. The content and balance was right.' JENNY & BARRY KELLINGTON