Sandi Hester

Our final day went by WAY too fast! I hated to leave all the new friends I had made and I was really enjoying painting all day – the inspiration was flowing like crazy and I just didn’t want to leave! I didn’t know what we were going to do on the last day – I just thought we would continue painting from photographs, so I was in for a big surprise when Charles set up a beautiful still life to paint from. Watching him paint shadows was great and I learned a lot from this demonstration. After he painted we broke for lunch and then they did 3 different tables of still life set ups for us to paint from. I SOOOO wanted to paint one of them since I was so inspired by what Charles painted, but I had to work on my black and white photograph painting because I really needed Charles to help me.

The picture I brought to paint from is one of my all time favorite pictures of my grandmother – she’s the one on the end (right side). I love the ladies hair do’s and their dresses are so much fun in this photograph- they were a lot of fun to paint too – since I didn’t know what color their dresses were it was a lot of fun to make that up! I finally finished the painting after working on it several more days after I got home. I’m fairly pleased with it – there’s lots that could be improved on it – but I like how the colors turned out – it feels like a bright fun cheerful painting. I still have a long way to go with figure painting but I definitely saw some improvement from day one. I’m going to try my best to keep practicing and seeing if I can keep improving.

Day three and four of our workshop we were suppose to bring old black and white photographs to paint from.  Most of us, including Charles, worked from the same photo two days because the paintings took us more time. Charles took two different old photos and combined them into one painting. The first photo he worked from was of a couple in a great old car and the second photo was from a local log cabin store. I worked 4 plus days on my painting from an old photo – I had to finish it once I got home because it took so long. I’ll show you the photo I used and tell you who it’s of and show you the finished painting in the next post, but you can see the beginning of it below of the three ladies. I was exhausted by the end of the third day so I did a quick landscape painting – I needed a break from figure painting and wanted to go to something I was a little more comfortable with. I’ve also included a picture of our second critique – you can see some of my other fellow painter’s work – it was a very talented group. You can click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

I could barely eat breakfast on day two because day one was so good I was just way too excited and couldn’t wait to get to the workshop. We had two African American models come in on our second day. The morning model was the niece of our afternoon model (the lady I painted). In the first picture you can see Charles in action and our lovely model in the back. I’ve included a close-up of what Charles was working on – the way he brings out the form in the face is just amazing. The third picture is his finished painting. The last two pictures are of my painting in progress (you can see our model in the back) and my finished painting. Charles makes figure painting look SO easy, but it is incredibly hard! I think it’s the most difficult thing to paint. At the end of day two we had our first critique.  We put all our paintings up on the wall and Charles went one by one and told us what we did good and where we could improve. He was very gracious and critiques are one of my favorite things because you learn so much. For the last picture I’ve added some of the class pictures from the first critique – I couldn’t get them all in one picture so this is just part of them.

Grady and I just got back from the most wonderful week! I took my first watercolor workshop. I started at the top by taking a workshop with the world renowned Charles Reid – he is one of my all time favorite watercolor artists and he’s one of the masters. It just doesn’t get any better! It truly was a once in a lifetime opportunity because Charles is in his 70′s and I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be doing workshops. There were 20 of us in the workshop, it was for 5 days, from 9 am to 4 pm, and it exceeded all my expectations!  So, I’m going to do a post on each of the 5 days I was there. You’ll definitely see some improvement in my painting as the week progresses – it’s quite obvious – or at least I hope it is! We stayed at a great bed & breakfast that was on top of a mountain – we had GREAT views.  They fix a homemade breakfast each morning that was delicious and homemade dessert every night for the guests.  I’m serious when I said this was a GREAT trip!

The first two days we had a live model come in for us to paint. Charles painted Jenny in the morning of the first day, then we had lunch, and then a new model came in for us to paint in the afternoon.  The first picture is the contour drawing Charles did of Jenny. The second picture is Charles showing us how he mixes his paint on the palette. You can see the model in the background – I loved her cute glasses.

This is the beautiful finished piece that Charles did. (Don’t forget you can click on any picture to see it larger.)

I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of my model the first day – I was quite overwhelmed by the whole day and didn’t take many pictures – but here’s my finished painting – trust me – they get better as the week goes on !