What a Day!

I watched Brian Smith do a portrait drawing demo that took about an hour and a half and I became hooked on drawing portraits in the classic style.  I have posted a few of them.  Today I went to a full day workshop with Brian where we were painting a portrait using the Anders Zorn pallet which consists of yellow ocher, cadmium red medium, Payne's grey and titanium white.

What a trip.  He also insisted we paint at least 16" X 20" which is larger than anything that I have done before.  I had a blast.  The three pigment palette greatly simplified things.  I have tried it before with some success but having Brian pushing me to put more colour into my shadows and simplify my highlights was an epiphany.  I have had instructors tell me to cool the shadows going away etc. but in this case cooling the shadows meant adding Payne's grey. Simple. This is not a perfect painting by any means but Brian declared it the best likeness and I learned so much doing it.

When I got home Debbie had a salmon filet and red peppers for me to play with.  Grilled salmon and burnt red pepper sauce.  What a perfect finish to a perfect day.