... and the last two days

The workshop finished a few days ago, but I've been busy catching up with a whole lot of things, including work. So, here I am again with the second part of the story.

I really liked the workshop and learned a whole lot. I also hope that it helped me gain more confidence. Despite that at least half of the group were professional artists, I found that I din't suck, in fact I was doing quite well. 

Unfortunately the weather during all four days was quite cold. Alvaro was disappointed that we can't go to the hustle and bustle of downtown Toronto and decided to settle for the centre of Oakville, where the workshop was taking place.  It was so cold and windy that everybody was freezing, even Alvaro himself, who doesn't seem to care much about the weather.  

Alvaro painting en plain air in the cold

... and the result

The scene that he chose to paint...

One of the most amazing things he did was to paint the classroom. We all wondered how he will simplify the rows of tables and all the clutter on them. He used a few lines and some dripping water through them to create the tables. Then a few spots of bright colors and some scrapes with a credit card finished the task. The focal point was the group of people around the easel at the top of the painting. This is one of the main things he was constantly emphasizing - pick a focal point and make the painting about it, put your brightest, lightest and darkest colors there. Simplify the rest by blurring, omitting, dry-brushing, etc.

Alvaro with his painting of the classroom

One exercise we did was painting figures in a loose way. Turned out that I don't suck at it and Alvaro, who can be pretty critical, liked my little humans below

Blaga's figures

in the process of painting a night scene

Due to the non-cooperating weather, he ended up painting a few demos from photos. This is the next best thing, because one of my goals was to see how he interprets actual scenes. 

Blaga's version of "Paris in back-light", watercolor 38 x 28 cm
This is one of the paintings from photos that we did on the last days. For the first time I used rough paper, which makes smooth washes harder, but dry brush is much easier

What else did I learn:
- big brush, small piece of paper;
- start with an under-painting of a very smooth wash. Cross-hatching the brushstrokes helps to avoid straight lines in it;
- values are the most important thing!!! It is ok to use black (neutral tint) when you need it. Also, white for highlights. Forget the stupid rules!
- back-runs, "cauliflowers", spills, spatters, all these things that happen with watercolors, give it character. Learn how to use them, instead of avoiding them;
- don't paint the scene as you see it, change it as it suits you

So, now I plan to re-do a few of my previous paintings, applying my new knowledge....