3 Day Workshop Program “Natural Elements, Methods of the Masters”
June 25, 26 and 27, 2018
Cost:  TDB
Nicole Kennedy Studio & Art Gallery  |  919-838-8580
719 N. Person St. Raleigh NC 27604

Instruction will be offered to artists working in oil, watercolor and acrylic every day.   3 day summary:

“Natural Elements, Methods From the Masters,” is a 3 day workshop in a friendly atmosphere to show you how landscape masters through time expressed their subjects with varieties of techniques, designs, palettes, and materials. Demonstrations include of historic landscape techniques from J.M.W. Turner to artists today. In addition to historic methods of your instructor will also demonstrate contemporary materials, tools and techniques in watercolor, acrylics and oil.

For example demonstrations include showing you how to use squeegees and brayers as paintbrushes, how to work on reflective metallic surfaces and mix watercolor, oil and acrylics, how to merge and mix digital photography with oil painting. Personal instruction follows the demonstrations to help you advance and enjoy your paintings.

Instruction will be offered to artists working in oil, watercolor and acrylic every day.

Day 1. The subject is water. We learn to paint the illusions of translucent water (lakes, tide pools, vernal pools) with reflections that shimmer and quiver. We consider how color changes in reflections, beneath translucent surfaces, and within shadows. Your instructor will demonstrate all aspects of painting water in oil, watercolor and acrylic. You will learn how past masters like Sargent, Turner and Winslow Homer all painted water and, how contemporary artists are responding to the subject of water.

This first day will also include a capsule history of landscape painting with an introduction to the foundations of landscape paintings palettes, compositions, linear and atmospheric perspective. This introduction takes you across time to show you how artists worked, the tools they used, and how traditions have evolved affecting the way we see and make art today.

Day 2. Flora; From Meadows to Forests to Gardens: how to evoke the sensation of infinity in a landscape, how to create the feeling of natural complexity in meadow grasses, clusters of trees, rolling landscapes and with intimate images like flowers in gardens or, other natural close-ups. We take you through the mechanisms of visual perception and art history to help you make persuasive flora. We will demonstrate useful perceptual theories in oil and mixed media using watercolor and acrylics.

We also take you on a brief tour through the history of color across time and cultures. We consider what triggers our recognition of motion and space; how we can use recipes for luminosity, halation, and sparkle and after image effects; how simultaneous contrast and successive contrast can create more exciting paintings; how historic color symbolism created biases which we can use to make emotionally persuasive paintings. We look at the work of color scientists (M. Chevreul and Ogden Rood) who changed the direction of painting. We will demonstrate their discoveries and include a brief program of color mixing, blending, and effects.

Day 3. The subject is contemporary landscape painting. Modern landscapes begin in the 19th century. We move through tonalists to Impressionists to Cezanne with his ideas uniting the biological vision to art history. We follow the evolution of landscapes through abstraction and their emergence in expressionism and abstracted forms. Your instructor will demonstrate these movements as well as the adoption of new tools, materials, and techniques used by 21st century landscape painters. The demonstration focuses on these new materials and tools which extend from the computer effects like Photoshop on landscape painting to new materials like anodized brushed silver aluminum, to the effects of new tools like squeegees and brayers, to merging photography with painting. Your Instructor will provide individual instruction in oil, watercolor and acrylics and mixed media.