Charles Reid Workshop Day 1

The workshop is finished. It was exhausting. (I know, you non-painters are scratching your heads...exhausting???) At the end I was so overwhelmed with information that I couldn't yet apply, I hid from painting for several days in Charleston, SC. Only by posting day by day can I approach showing you things. At some point I will post more photos on Flicker so you can see more of the steps in what Reid did.

For now, here are a few photos from Day 1 of the Charles Reid workshop.

We watched him draw and paint from 9-12. This was the case every day, except on the rest of the days we had a 30-45 minute "critique" on what we had painted the day before.

After drawing, very carefully for about an hour, in his controlled, contour way he began painting with an extremely limited palette of

cad red light, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue and yellow ochre.

Keeping his hand connected to the paper as he goes along.

Adding some burnt umber and burnt sienna along the way.

Reid Finished Day 1 Painting.

This is the gorgeous studio area in which we painted from 1-4

trying to use what we had seen that morning..

Sad to say, this is my first attempt, post Reid exposure. I wouldn't have posted it, but was afraid if I didn't you would imagine it to be even worse! (He really liked the shoes, though. :-)

Charles Reid Workshop Day 2

I am settled in Oklahoma now, for a couple of weeks, so I can post some more photos from the workshop. This was probably my favorite day of watching Reid paint.

Here we all are anxious for the day to begin.

He had a beautiful young boy as a model and he painted a double portrait of him.

Finished Charles Reid portrait

My afternoon effort with a different model.

Some random sketches from the workshop

I am sort of frustrated by my lack of a good scanner and the silly lighting in the gallery when I shot photos of things. The gallery where we were painting was beautiful, but the lighting was very yellow and glaring and things are not very good colors when I post them. Since I am using a laptop, my Photoshop is somewhat useless in editing. But, on we go. Maybe I can fix some of the photos when I return to my computer. Below are just some pages from my notebook that I used while listening to and watching Reid draw.

Also to answer a couple of questions, Reid used Fabriano Artistico cold press in a block every day except day 3 when he used a piece of Fabriano "soft press" which he said was somewhere between cold and hot press. I used Fabriano Artistico cold press sheets every day. And, the blue here in the nose, he pulled down into other areas which diluted it. He did that a lot. He almost used the paper as a pallet.

Opening comments.

I was sitting right behind Reid while he was drawing this day.

This day I moved to where I could watch his face while he painted.

This is another painter intently watching. He is an archaeologist who had worked in a dig near Haifa (Carmel) in the early 70's and lived on a Kibbutz while he was there. He was also very generous, printing some old black and white photos for me for our "historical photo day".

Another painter, mesmerized.

Day 3 Charles Reid Workshop

Yesterday, on the first of the portraits of Nicholai, Reid began with the darkest values and then used that paint to bring down into the mid and light values. In the second one he started with a light skin tone wash and then when that was dry, added the darks and mid-values. Today he again started with the darks and used the paint already on the paper to move into the mid values. He did mention that that is usually how he works, now, with no beginning wash.

These photos are so bad. I promise I will replace all when I get home to my regular camera and computer!! Here you can see that he has started with the dark next to the nose bridge and brought the paint out into the lighter shadow areas. (note the break in the eyebrow to indicate the brow coming toward you.)

Contrary to what my automatic painting response would be, his values are always lighter in the shadow side. This is because darker values come forward and he wants the shadows to recede. (I hope I said that correctly.)

He also uses less contrast and lost edges in the shadow areas for the same reason.

We always had 2 models - 9 people on each model- and here are the other artist's work during the morning critique.

More of our work.

I got to paint Nicholai this day. Reid was very complimentary of my work, and he pointed out the shadow side of the face, the hands and the left side of the shirt and arms as good examples of using what he had taught. (In case you are wondering.) It feels funny to say this, but it made me feel good at the time and I was really enjoying using the different focus and way of seeing that he taught.

Day 4 Reid Workshop

A long interlude between posting Day 3 and Day 4. Lots of heartbreaking family issues that kept me from being at all interesting in posting or painting. I have been back in Tel Aviv for several days and am going to try and jump back into my real life.

Meanwhile, here is a bit about the last 2 days of the Reid workshop. These two days were not as inspiring to me, and I was disappointed to move away from live people and real things to these squares of old time photos.

On Day 4 Reid had us draw from old photos in black and white. He wanted us to focus on values rather than color.

Here are a few shots of Reid drawing from his old photo.

He began to paint before he had finished drawing, so we could move along a little faster into our own work that afternoon.

This is where Reid stopped painting for the day. We went on to do our drawings from black and white photos in the afternoon and to begin the color studies in preparation for our own paintings.

My initial drawing from b&w photo. (my parents in Chicago in 1947)

Day 5 Reid Workshop

Our last morning of the workshop was spent watching Reid finish his drawing, then the rest of the painting. People started leaving right after Reid finished, rather than stay for the last afternoon of painting, which I found very frustrating and kind of a let down. Those of us who were left worked on our paintings and then we had a quick critique of what we had done.

Here is the rest of Reid finishing his painting.

Above: Finished Reid painting.

Above is my study in preparation for the larger painting from my photo.

Above, on the left here, is all I got done the last day of the workshop. I have since worked on it some more. When my husband returns from the states I will post it, as it ended up in his suitcase along with all of the painting I did 2 weeks later in Pat Weaver's workshop.

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The following are some of the paintings from other people in the Reid workshop from days 4 and 5.