Nikki O’Neill doing color study

Catherine Nickle doing color study

Dawn Capron and her color study

 

Nikki’s painting of a scene from Africa

 

Catherine’s painting

 

Dawn’s painting

 

On Friday and Saturday, 3 of the original 6 who had signed up for my first Abstracting the Landscape workshop met in my studio. On the original date we had a large snowstorm (of course!).  The follow up session will have 4 people in April. We all agreed that we were glad that it was a smaller group–more time to talk and share, and, of course, more table space for all the pastels!  The downside was not having all of the people to share with. As you will see from the paintings, none of us wants to become non-representational. But we all would like to become a little looser, stronger, bolder in our approaches to painting. We discussed what that meant in terms of composition, value, color, and technique and each person identified personal goals for themselves. We then did a number of studies on the first day–composition, value and color. Yesterday we all painted. (I will share my painting in a separate post.) It was an intense, but fun experience (enhanced by the discovery of the Saint Michel French bakery down the street and their almond croissants!!!)

I am looking forward to the next installment in April. And I’d like to find a way for the entire group to get together from time to time to share their progress. This is just a beginning for all of us.

The primary emphasis of the workshop was on defining strong shapes and I think this comes through beautifully in the three paintings.