Workshop Day Two

Are you sure it's only Tuesday? Seems like we've learned a lot in only two days. Today the emphasis was on value. Donna stated that the most important thing in the painting is value. I've heard this a hundred times and have said it myself over and over in my teaching. But no one else, including myself, has broken the subject down to make it possible to see value in so many different ways. This gives the artist an incredible number of creative options. We've been working from a black-and-white newspaper clipping. Yesterday we did five or more different shape renderings; today we did four or more different value renderings. Every exploration revealed something about the subject that wasn't evident before and each one seemed more exciting. Tomorrow we'll work with our own photograph, taking it through the shape and value analysis to arrive at a small painting--we hope.

Tonight Donna demonstrated for the Fairborn Art Association, sponsors of the workshop. She briefly explained what we've been doing at the workshop and how she had arrived at the point where she would begin a small painting of two pears. She worked from a photograph and an earlier painting of the subject. The abstract design was simple and elegant, the color very exciting. Her style is controlled, but not stiff. She'll finish her painting tomorrow.