Stotts Workshop

My acrylic workshop went much better than expected. Thomas Stotts was the artist/teacher. I think he may be pretty new to the teaching thang, but he did well. He was a very nice guy to put up with us old women. He had some interesting techniques with his brush, and he used layer upon layer of acrylic to make his paintings have more depth.
Random shot of the ladies painting.

When I attend a workshop, I try to copy the artist's style as much as possible - doing all that he says. You would be surprised at how many people attend workshops and then never hear or do what the teacher says. To learn, I need to imitate. After the workshop, I can take away with me the things that I liked and learned, but discard anything that was not particularly helpful. Stott's layering technique was particularly helpful. I liked his feathery brush stroke too. Here is my painting in progress and his painting in the background. Notice the pictures we are painting from on the top of my easel - the barns were the only thing in the photos that we used.

On the other hand, I thought he could use a lesson in color, but each to his own. He used a lot of black to gray-out or darken his painting. Black is just dark, dull, and depressing. I usually make my own black from other colors. At the end, he did go back over the foreground of his painting with a light yellow to brighten it up making it much nicer. He will probably go back into his painting later and touch it up - as we all will do.
here is his workshop finished piece.

All in all, it was a fun, creative day. The ladies were all fun people and I did learn something and I got a painting done. Acrylic is fast that way. I did think that from Stott's feathery painting style, he should work in pastels. In fact, the whole workshop made me want to be working more in pastels.
Here is my painting. My painting is a 16x20, while Stott's painting was a 24x30 - making a bit of a difference in ability to do detail.
Here is a shot of all the paintings in the workshop. The Painting Ladies like to take a photo like this to see the differences in all the paintings - fun.

By the way, Jesse posted some new photos.