Maggie Siner Workshop: Day 1 and 2

I am not sure what I expected but probably not the petite, flurry of energy and life, person that Maggie Siner is.  She started out the workshop with a slide show featuring, not her work, but the work of other artists through the ages.   From early Eastern Chinese (maybe Japanese, not sure) ink drawings, to Rembrandt and then impressionists, her intention was to show how brush stroke and value create great paintings.  The gesture can lead the viewer into and throughout the painting creating a sense of mood, whether it is drama, excitement or calm.  The gesture informs the viewer.

I think in our subconscious we all get that but it doesn't always bubble to the surface of my brain when I need it most.

So, she started us out with a diluted saucer of india ink and a bamboo brush and had us make strokes on a large newsprint pad (without looking) expressing our feelings about various things.  The two here are fear and breath.  Then we were to draw various objects she had set up, both were done with continuous strokes.

Then on to 3 color value studies using the same brush and diluted india ink.

Then we toned our canvas with turp and raw umber and wiped it off until it was dry for a 3 color value study.

She had laboriously arranged a number of still lifes around the room from which we could select our subject matter.  And yes, for anyone who has seen info about other workshops she had the dreaded hand (don't have a picture) among the still life objects.  I didn't opt to paint it.

Then lastly she let us use color.

She did demo in a fashion.  Her initial demonstration was about finding the pattern of dark in the painting.  She would start from the edge of the painting (always) and move through the painting in an abstract way sketching out the dark.  Then she would wipe this down until only a suggestion of it remained.  Down the road she started working on value.  She would put strokes of paint in the correct color and value randomly (meaning in their correct place but working throughout the canvas) on the canvas, identifying the lightest light 

and the darkest dark and all other values.  She was not filling in shapes at this point, just establishing color and values.

The next day we worked with models and did an exercise which completely frustrated me.  I will talk about that tomorrow.  And, I think I should add here, that I am showing you what I did for informational purposes - not that it truly demonstrates her ideas or methods.  I was just a student endeavoring to improve my painting ability.  But, her methods changed me and I think will help further the evolution of my painting ability.