Teaching Beginning Oil Painting in a Day Workshop

One of my favorite things to do is to teach others to open to their creativity and I just finished a wonderful time teaching at the Schoodic Arts Festival in Winter Harbor, Maine.

I wanted to share a little about the process that I use in a one day workshop designed for beginners and I hope that whoever reads this might find inspiration. We begin our day, introducing ourselves and I always ask what participants are hoping to achieve with the day and also if they are aware of any blocks they might have to have success. So often, this is where the old messages are revealed of not being creative, or feeling that they have the skills to attempt this new exploit. So right here, I have to say, that all people are creative. It is a innate ability and gift that we all hold. So often, it gets knocked down early in life, or we gain an identity that says to ourselves that we are not creative. It is important to find this place and then change the message because the brain can change its self affirming messages and allow one to create with freedom. This is my goal as a creativity enhancer. So to say to oneself, “I am an ARTIST”, will begin the neural synapses to reform new circuits in the brain and allow yourself creative flow.

I then introduce the materials for oil painting, the paint ( we use basic primaries of red, yellow and blue and a neutral and white) the brushes and use of each style and the different surfaces that can be painted on. Then we begin to mix colors, looking at real life objects in real lighting situations. Here are some of their initial color studies, pretty successful and gratifying for them.

From this the day continues and we begin to look at the relationship of colors, and values, one to the other and they are invited to design a still life from basic objects and basic colors. It is important when learning to keep things simple, and move into complexity in steps. At this point, we would do some drawing value studies and try several different compositions of the still life to settle on a design that feels best.

So here are some of this classes final paintings. This is a 9-4 workshop for beginners, so I feel that they were very successful and I hope decide to continue their art making with great happiness.