Sixty seconds of sunshine and still life's

Yesterday was workshop No2,

We started the morning off by doing some silly tonal exercises. The sun was shining so I decided it would be good to go outside and sketch things ,whilst you could see very clear tonal differences . Great, only problem was, that once we got outside the sun only stayed for about 10 minutes ( sorry I exaggerated in my title), but nevertheless the students did a great job and came back with some simple but effective sketches from around the centre.

Each student then had to do a one colour tonal painting from their sketches. The idea was not to get a great painting but to learn that the more tonal detail you put in your sketch the better the result, especially if you are painting from your sketches.

As the weather had turned cold, after lunch we did a still life. It was not an easy one, but they coped well with it and below is the results to show you. Unfortunately the teaching room wasn't warm so it was a bit of a battle for the students.

The teaching room is proving to be not ideal, its quite dark and although the artificial lighting is bright it is very yellow. I am told the storage heaters will be on next time rather than 2 small plug in radiators. I sincerely hope so, as I may not be able to continue to use it. I am going to enquire about other halls in different areas, but can't decide if its best to travel round doing the workshops around and about or whether to keep myself based in the one place. Well thats a decision for the future, but for now I hope you enjoy seeing the students work. I am very pleased with them.......