Whitaker Workshop

[Chris Saper]

Here's the alchemist at work. I'll post more photos once I figure out how to locate them in my computer (page 18 of the manual) and when I recover. Left to right: Gary, Linda, Suzanne Decker, Pat Langmade, Michele, and Merlin.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Ditto to all above, especially the exhaustion! After traveling all day and flying through the nasty thunderstorms. I spent the morning sleeping, then added a page to my site for all to see the workshop. I thought it would be easier than posting a ton of wonderful photos here.

This link will take you directly to the Whitaker page:

Whitaker Workshop photos

I had to post this photo here. A few of our fearless moderators.

[Mari DeRuntz]

What a great-looking crew! I can't wait to read your accounts, when you all come out of the glorious fog you must be in. Thanks so much for all the images...

[Michael Georges]

Still quite wiped out, but here are some thoughts...

We all had a very challenging week.

The class was about light and painting from life. It was about really striving for accuracy in your forms. It was about teaching your eyes to "see".

We painted each day for about 6 hours - 3 hours per model. We had two wonderful models - Les and Cindy who held their poses all week with amazing professionalism.

We painted under natural north light coming from two high windows on each side of the classroom's north wall - no other illumination.

Bill lectured and did some work on a demo throughout the week. Bill went from student to student through the day - repeatedly giving advice and instructions.

We all learned "The Painter's Dance" as we struggled to manipulate hue, value and chroma on the fly - stepping back and looking, mixing a color to match an area that we saw, moving forward and making 1-3 strokes, stepping back and looking, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

The first day, I stuck to monochrome and really tried to get the forms right. I was physically standing closer to the model than I have ever been (lightbulb!) - the light modelled the form perfectly.

Here are our models, Les and Cindy from my position - Cindy's eyes were closed in this shot, but were open in the pose.

[Michael Georges]

Cindy:

Again, her eyes are closed here but were open in the pose - my bad picture taking...

[Michael Georges]

I am assuming and hoping that others will also post their progress shots.

Here is my first days efforts in monochrome:

First Les. I painted him in the morning and the afternoons were harder than the mornings because we were fresher.

[Michael Georges]

And Cindy:

[Holly Snyder]

Beth and everyone,

The workshop pictures are great. It really gives one a feel for what it's like to participate. Thanks for sharing all your hard effort. Beautiful work.

Holly

[Chris Saper]

Michael, et al,

The finished (so to speak) paintings of Les are located here, joining yours and Beth's.