Hi everyone, I thought I’d share some of the works I created on the weekend during a workshop that I was running. The group was a small one (2 adults and 2 juniors) which meant I could guide them while comfortably getting my own works done at the same time. The thing I tried to push home with them was to simplify the scene into the most basic forms and study the tones. While I didn’t want them rushing I did limit the time at each location to 1 hour so that they were more aware of the changes in light as they worked. Each of my scenes was done in roughly 10 minutes, allowing me to concentrate on helping the participants along the way.
All pieces were done on 9″ x 5″ Rustygrit plein air boards. Here are the ones I did for the day.
The first location was the Mornington foreshore, one of my favourite painting spots over the years. Setting up just before 8am everything looked great until dark foreboding clouds came in and sapped the light. My piece still retains some of the light while hinting at the leaden sky in the background.
After wrapping up the first scene we packed all the gear in our cars and made the 10 minute drive to Mount Martha. As we crested the hill and started toward the town I got really excited. The sun had bathed the beach in fantastic summer light and there were crowds of people preparing to sail out on the bay. The bright coloured sails gave me plenty to work with and the scene below is what resulted.
Following on we moved to the south beach where the crowds were building and split up. One of the juniors chose to paint the brightly coloured bathing boxes, another looked at the view of the headland with the crowded beach in the foreground. I chose to look out to the bay and really simplify. I wantes to capture the shifting colours in the water and the people talking on the beach. While I was working on the scene a boat sailed straight past so I decided to use it to give the water some interest.
With the first three locations done myself and one of the students took the trek to the distant headland and set up at the rockpools. I feel it was worth the trip.
Upon reviewing all the works we could all see marked improvements as the day’s scenes developed. I was very pleased – I had converted another group to the thrill of working en plein air!
