Workshops

I was recently asked to lead a workshop entitled "Painting Expressively". A great group of 10 committed artists gathered with me in the Naramata Elementary School for two days of boundary pushing exercises. My intention was to get the group to work through several  processes that would force them to exercise the creative/intuitive right cortex rather than in the default-mode analytic/predictable left cortex.
There were some pleasant surprises amid the straining and searching.
   Here we are painting with sticks. For those used to working in a small scale with #2 brushes it is quite a departure.

As well as stick painting I asked the group to paint with their left (or least used) hand,complete a painting in 37 strokes, complete another in 37 minutes, do a contour line drawing and build some loose transparent glazes or washes over that structure.

At the end of day one we had a room full of tired painters with many colourful and expressive studies livening up our space. For day two I asked the group to do whatever they wanted and I attempted to offer any individual help that I could.

From my perspective it was a great time, I only hope that the participants benefited in some small way for their patience with me and I thank them for their disciplined response, working through my exercises. 

A big thank you out to the Shatford Center in Penticton for allowing me to use a couple of their mannequins for this weekend. Much appreciated.

I was not only a teacher this month as I was able to be a student in Judith Fosters relief printing workshop. Great fun to play with the process again and I plan to explore this medium in more depth. Here are the results of a couple of exercises from that workshop.

Until next time.