Day Twenty Six 01/26/17 "Thirty Paintings in 30 Days"

The Wynn House

The Wynn House

I recently attended Gina Brown's workshop in Columbus, Georgia.  It was held at The Wynn House and was hosted by a lovely lady and fellow artist Mary Pat King.


 This was a two day workshop.  I was on the waitlist for this workshop but was fortunate enough to get in the week before it started.  I was sent Gina's supply list and was shocked at her limited palette!  RED, YELLOW,  BLUE and WHITE!  If you have been following my blog, I just completed my Color Chart Project with 22 colors of oil paint!  So the night before I left for Gina's workshop, I did another Color Chart using this limited palette.  I took these charts to the workshop and they were very helpful. Gina really liked them as well. (To be fair to Gina, she did have two blues and two reds with one yellow and white.) Below is a picture of her color choices and brands and the Color Charts using these colors.  (I ran out of chart boards and had to use a small canvas on one board.)

I loved Gina's Workshop!! She is such a good teacher.  She had the twelve of us bring our own set ups to paint.  I liked this a lot as we all had different paintings.  She did a teaching demonstration each morning.  She positioned her palette so it was behind her and facing us, so we could all see.  Every time she mixed a color she verbalized 'the recipe' for us.  She was able to mix any color she wanted using this limited palette.  It was so refreshing to see this!

When it was our turn to paint our set-ups, she asked us to sketch it out first in our sketchbooks to check for composition and placement issues.  She then went around the room and checked everyone's sketch.  Then we used vine charcoal and placed this sketch on a small practice canvas.  Next she had us to start painting on this small canvas using just 40 strokes!  She wanted all our strokes to be well thought out, for us to paint with intention!!  Once this was done we could start on our larger canvas, beginning with a vine charcoal sketch.  We all completed our paintings and even had time to go back and finish the small one.

 Gina's Sketch with Vine Charcoal, Day One.

 Gina's Set-up Demo, Day One.

 Gina's 40 stroke demo.

 Q & A

 Gina's palette.

 Gina talk to us about color mixing.

 Gina's finished painting, Day One. (Which SOLD immediately!)

Her palette at the end of her painting session.

Gina's Set up Day Two.

Close up of Gina's set-up.

Gina doing first day demo.

Gina's completed demo on Day Two. (Which sold right away!)

She was very helpful to us all when it came to color mixing since most of us were not familiar with such a limited palette.

The next day was very similar, the only real difference was that she had us sketch 4 different possible set-ups in our sketchbook.  We had to move our flowers and vases around, use light from different directions, stuff like this.  Then we picked the sketch we liked best.  This was a very helpful exercise.  We did another 40-stroke small practice painting and then completed a larger one.  I even had time for a fifth painting!

I highly recommend Gina Brown as a workshop instructor! I will definitely go back to her classes.

I will discuss other highlights of this workshop tomorrow, so stay tuned!!

Below is a picture of my first 40-stroke painting. (I came back and added more strokes!)