Colleen Barry Workshop

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.
Michelangelo

I completed the second week of Colleen Barry's Figure Painting Workshop at ARA.  Even though I was disappointed in my own work, the workshop itself was phenomenal.

Initially I had been enrolled in Emmy's figure drawing workshop.  I had signed up for drawing the figure, since I remain at the drawing stage in my artistic development.  Unfortunately, this workshop was cancelled, so I enrolled in Colleen's painting one.  It was definitely worth it.

Colleen stressed developing form and compression of values.  The result will be a painting that has a realistic feel, while not being "photo-realistic", a style that is not desirable to me.

During the final day, I became more accustomed to painting using Colleen's method.  Since I had wasted an exorbitant amount of time on the model's face, I didn't work on the figure as much as I now believe I should have.  In retrospect, I wish I had moved to the figure sooner, and perhaps I would have gained more comfort.  

I know that if I am able to practice Colleen's method, I will achieve good results.  I do want to say that attempting to achieve the rounded forms of the figure with oil paints was an arduous challenge.  I dare to express: even more laborious than reading Vergil for the first time!  Yet, it was definitely as stimulating, satisfactory, and pleasurable.  

If only I had more time to paint the figure!

Some points for me to remember:

1.  Gradation of values

2.  Compression of values

3.  Soft vs hard edges

4.  Turning the form

5.  Light points-where does the eye want to go?

6.  Where does the light hit?

7.  Warm shadows, cool highlights

8.  Cool coming out of shadow

9.  Push back form with higher values

ARA Workshop with Colleen Barry

I have the extreme pleasure to be attending a workshop with painter Colleen Barry.  She is a superior painter, and has a wealth of knowledge about painting techniques and the history of painting.  I was extremely hesitant to participate in this workshop on account of the fact that two of my instructors from ARA are also participating in the workshop.  I am glad I did, however, even though my work isn't comparable with the work of other participants.  Colleen is helpful and clear.  She is well-organized and thorough.  Painters of all levels would greatly benefit from listening to her, watching her, and heeding her advice.  We are working in the French Academic manner of the 19th century.

The first three days were drawing days for me:

My block in was decent.  We worked using the comparative measuring manner.  I worked this way in Brain's portrait class, so I was somewhat familiar with the technique.  It is different from how we usually draw the figure at ARA.  We began with a gesture and then measured from the inside out, unlike ARA where we create a silhouette first.  Even in Brian's portrait workshops, I was careful to construct an accurate silhouette.  Colleen believes that when beginning with a gesture, there is more feeling and expression in the drawing.  In addition, it is a much faster process.  It was rather liberating, but my drawing isn't as exact as I think it would be if I had employed our usual method of obtaining the construct.

After Colleen demonstrated window method of doing a grisaille during much of day 3, I began painting during days 4 and 5.  Colleen believes David was the first to proceed using the window method for his studies.  It is a great way to acquire form.

I worked in raw umber and flake white.  The brand of raw umber I used was warmer than other brands, but I did not mind so much because our model has a reddish hue to his skin.  The problem with my raw umber, though, was that it was too oily.  I had to tone up on my values to have my oily raw bind with my flake white.  I used a 2 round for my brush to begin with, but Colleen thought my 2 was too small.  I ended up with a 6 round, and turned out to be more appealing to me.  During this process, I had to fight with the paint to achieve form.  It is OK, but not as strong as I would have hoped.  As I review my work now I can see that I need to study anatomy more thoroughly.  

The workshop is two weeks.  Next week we will pain with a limited palette, but I will work more on the model's torso, and hopefully do another run over his biceps.  

QAA: Result of 4 Week Long Pose

I am relatively pleased with my progress at the conclusion of the 4 week long pose at QAA.  I obviously didn't finish, but I worked using the process I learned in Garrett's workshop to the best of my ability.  I have a photo to work from, but I have great difficultly with color when working from a photograph, so I will probably leave it unfinished.

Here is week 3's dead color stage:

I have too high a value under the cheekbone, but I resolved that during week 4. 

I was able to show Garrett the result.  He indicated that I did well with the color on the model's face, and especially well with the amount of time I had to work.