I returned to Warehouse 521 this morning for the second day of the Roger Dale Brown workshop.

I arrived early so that I could work on yesterday’s piece before the workshop began. I was more careful with my paint application and color mixing. I used a color wheel to help along the way. The painting is still incomplete but I’m much happier with it than I was yesterday.

 

 

Roger brought in some of his gallery-ready pieces and discussed his process with us…what a treat!

 

He even demonstrated the technique of glazing on a piece. Roger glazes with a mixture of 80% galkyd and 20% gamsol.

 

We did some painting exercises to learn about the result of certain techniques. We painted the same piece twice, once with a monochromatic wash, once without. In each instance, we continued to focus on big shapes and value relationships.

Another thing that Roger encourages is mixing into the same puddle for all colors. This really tests your color mixing abilities, but it keeps all of your colors in the same family and in harmony with one another. I made sure I did this today and it was a huge help.

 

Below are the step-by-step progressions of my two studies:

 

 

 

 

You can see a huge difference between between the first and second painting. The monochromatic wash adds harmony and vibrations throughout the piece.

 

Here are my two studies again in full size:

Here are Roger’s studies side-by-side:

If we had enough time, Roger would have had us paint this piece a third time, but with a rose wash. In fact, he suggested that we play around with this or any other piece and vary the washes to experiment with outcomes.

After the exercises, we painted from our own reference photos. My reference photo was taken 10 years ago in the pasture by my parents’ house. I love the colors I the trees and the cows.

 

 

I chose to use a color specific wash to try and bring out the glowing colors in the trees. I got this about 80% done and will finish it tomorrow.

 

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for a Day 3 recap.