From the last workshop

A few weeks ago I took a very worthwhile one-day workshop from Ingrid Christensen on painting the clothed figure. After a demo by Ingrid we had just over 10 minutes to do a 10x8 monochromatically. The idea was to work with raw umber, blocking in the directionals and then getting the silhouette. Then using raw umber and ultramarine blue, to note in the darkest areas, followed with some white for highlights. This was my result.

Then with another 10x8, we had just over half an hour to try one adding colour - and this time we should select just part of the figure. We started with raw umber, the silhouette and darks but did not add the white. Then we mixed colours and added them to create skin tones and shadows and complete what we could in the time available

Then we had about two and  half hours to work slightly larger and use the same method on a full figure study. I found working this quickly made the paintings more expressive and the limited palette did produce some good skin tones. I intend to work more in this approach.
I took these quick studies to a recent talk I did for some Seniors...partly to show some current work and also to show that art is something a person continues to work on- always looking to get better. Workshops can be useful -not because you want to duplicate the work, but because you want to try new methods and work out what adaptation of them works for you.