Sunday, August 17, 2008

Charles Reid Workshop Spring 2009

Below are the postings I made when I took a Charles Reid workshop in the spring of 2009. I decided to put them all in a single post together, and predate them, as I got tired of seeing them take up so much room among my own things. however, I know that they are helpful to people looking for Workshop info, and I didn't want to get rid of them altogether.

so....have a look


TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2009

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. :-)

16 COMMENTS:

Nartizt said...

How lucky are you! I'd love to take a workshop with him. He makes it look so easy, doesn't he? I thought your painting turned out very nice. Looking forward to learning more about your experience with him.

laura said...

I really like the light on the model's thighs and cheekbone; you captured her posture too!
Workshops are totally exhausting--the learning and the socializing--and I read somewhere (I cling to this!) that you shouldn't expect to do your best work in a workshop: you're there for immersion.
I'm in line to take a workshop w/Reid in 2010!!

Ramana KV said...

Wow.. That's a great opportunity.. I would love watch him paint.. Your painting has turned out nice.. I like how the colors are layered..

Sandi Hester said...

Carol, I think you did great!!! I'm really looking forward to seeing more. Thanks for sharing so many photos from the workshop - I REALLY enjoyed looking at them. I like your tray you used too - it looks good and portable and light. I know what you mean by exhausting - I can only imagine! Can't wait for the next post!

Cathy Gatland said...

Whewee, Carol - I feel quite emotional just looking at these... I'm quite sure it was exhausting (I think the model in your painting reflects the way you felt - she looks worn out!) But what an experience and opportunity - just give yourself time to absorb it all, and be gentle on yourself! Thanks for posting this.

L.Holm said...

Sounds like an intense and wonderful seminar! So great to see his work. He's such a master. And yours, too!! Your painting is wonderful! and those shoes ARE great. : )
Liz

Marianne Ginsberg said...

I think your first attempt is great and looks complete. It's remarkable you could do that while being so tired. I totally relate to workshop exhaustion. You should get an award for completing the workshop. Consider yourself prize-worthy! Take care of yourself and we'll look forward to seeing more when you're rested.

NoNo said...

It's a great opportunity!. I think that once in your study you were extracting the best of the workshop.

Un saludo

Peg Bundy said...

Enjoyed reading your experience, thanks for sharing. I think you did a really nice job on her hair and face. I can only imagine how mentally tiring it must be.

Christine in Art said...

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading about your experience. I tagged you on my blog with The Passion for Painting Award.

skyking said...

Hi Carol,
You are so lucky to have taken this workshop. It is on my list for sure! Good job on documenting this - the first day looks good - so does your painting. I hope you got to eat at Magnolia's or High Cotton...

A Charles Reid workshop AND it's in Charleston? Life cannot be better...

Thanks for sharing.

Ken Goldman said...

Welcome back! I like your first attempt. I also enjoyed scrolling down your site and seeing the preparatory works you did for the C. Reid workshop. He's a very generous teacher

dominique eichi said...

Your talent is great , your work will shine and wonder us in no time, I know.

admin said...

Thanks for looking in. Since I am traveling and don't have much computer access, I am not even going to try and answer questions or comments on each post. However, I will try and address the questions asked in the next post.

Thank you also for your words of support. It was a great experience and I can't wait until I can get home and really work without interruption That will be the end of April!

Jennifer Lawson said...

Carol,
I just went through the whole sequence. What a wonderful experience you had and thank you for posting and sharing it. I am taking a five day workshop with him in Vermont in June.

Nicolette said...

dear Carol,

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful experience! I think your first try is quite good! I love the way you put in the highlight on the model's jeans! You make it look so efortless!

SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2009

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.

9 COMMENTS:

jgr said...

Oh! How exciting for you to be at a Charles Reid workshop!!! He is one of my favorites. Your portrait is wonderful-I love it!!
Thank you for sharing.

Barbara Weeks said...

Lucky you! Charles Reid is one of my favorites!

You did a great job! I always enjoy your work too.

L.Holm said...

Fantastic, Carol! The Reid demo is so valuable for us to see. Thanks for sharing. Your painting is gorgeous. Are you working on a plate bristol paper or regular wc paper? thanks, Liz

The Ginrod said...

We're coming to Oklahoma next month- shame we couldn't catch up and have some fun together as Oklahomans!
xx

Loredana said...

OMG, I can't wait to see you in act with the new rules you've learned!!!
Just wondering... where has gone the blue nose in the first photo of the boy??? Does he puts colors on the papere anf mix it there or he puts colors anf takes it off after a while? is this a mistery? I hope no!

You lucky to have had this experience, and you did a great work on your portrait!

laura said...

Your painting is great, Carol. I clicked on it to enlarge it, so I could really admire the way you handled especially the nose and mouth (so hard for me!).

admin said...

Thank you thank you!!! Since I am traveling and seeing family, I don't have much computer access, I am not even going to try and answer questions or comments on each post. However, I will try and address the questions asked in the next post.

Thank you also for your words of support. It was a great experience and I can't wait until I can get home and really work without interuption. That will be the end of April!

Joanne said...

Looks like it was a great workshop. Lots of great work.Does Charles Reid use cold or hot press paper? From the pictures it looks like cold press but can't tell for sure.

robertleedy.com said...

Carol,
It is amazing to see how Reid puts down color. That first shot of the model's nose and the pure color that goes down. WOW! I guess he lets the colors mix on the paper? Your portrait is very nice - I love that neckline shadow...

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2009

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.

6 COMMENTS:

Pat said...

Hi Carol, I have passed on the Passion Of Painting Award to you for your blog of wonderful sketches and paintings. I have been following your blog and find it inspiring. Visit my blog and pick up your award.

Nancy Van Blaricom said...

Thank you Carol, I'm really enjoying your posts about the Charles Reid Workshop. You have some nice sketches of Reid. Thank you for sharing your notes with us, how fun.

Belinda Del Pesco said...

What a treat to scroll through your photos, and relive the CR Workshop experience! Your drawings of him are so right on; you nailed his carriage and posture while he's "in the zone" of artistic focus. Your paintings, and the photo sequence of CR's model /double portrait is incredible. Good job all the way around.

admin said...

Thank you, Pat, for the award, and your very kind compliment! I have visited your blog many times and enjoy seeing your work, too!

Nancy, thank you for mentioning you are enjoying the posts. I wonder sometimes if this is boring, so it is nice to get feedback!

And, my day has been made with Belinda telling me my Reid sketches are right on! Thank you Belinda. Judy and Charles both remember you well, from the California workshop. They really enjoyed that special venue.

Sandi Hester said...

Carol, I am LOVING these posts!!! They are very helpful since I'll be going to a Reid workshop next month. Man alive, these sketches are great!!! I'm loving that you are posting on each day of the workshop - not boring at all -I'm soaking each one up!

marcello murru said...

Carol how are you,? plan for the next sketchcrawl 23? very impressive work and happy,this most important!
nescikot!!!

TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2009

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.

11 COMMENTS:

Sandi Hester said...

Great job Carol!!! I'm very impressed! I love that you posted the class paintings - they were fun to look at. I'm going to be teaching some watercolor classes this summer and we're going to do the critique thing after each class and I think I'm going to post the paintings from my class each week. It's fun to look at all the different versions. Thanks again for posting from the workshop - I'm soaking it up!!!

Peggi Habets said...

Lucky you! I've always wanted to take one of his workshops but haven't had the opportunity yet. You portrait looks great, a star student!

laura said...

Fantastic! It looks, from the paintings propped up for critique, that you are with a hardworking and accomplished group.
Thank you for so carefully explaining what Reid was doing!
Your painting is great--I like how you captured Nikolai's leaning; and his hands.

NAVAL LANGA said...

Are you on faceBook? If not be there. We can find there many persons of common interest.

Naval Langa
PAINTINGS GALLERIES-TONES OF COLOURS

Nancy Van Blaricom said...

I'm envious of your workshop journey. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Your finished work looks great. I am so loving your lost/found edges... well, jus the whole painting.

Jennifer Lawson said...

Great painting. Love the shirt left side of the shirt.

Erika Nelson said...

Bravo Carol what wonderful snippets from the workshop! I enjoyed reviewing Reid's teachings through you. I knew you'd enjoy yourself and would find the experience rewarding because your technique already reminded me of his approach. Your results are wonderful! Looking forward to more eye candies. And to watching how this experience influences your works. I also knew your work would get Charles's attention :)

I feel I've completely missed out on you when you were so near me though I'm not sure how many days it actually was that you were in OK and I was in AR. I'm still in California now but thought I'd check in on you. Hugs! Thanks for sharing!

Hillary Miller said...

Thanks for sharing your experiences with the Reid Workshop. It's kind of like magic watching him paint! Looks like you had a great time. Happy Passover!

Suzanne McDermott said...

Carol! Thanks for sharing these marvelously detailed posts about your workshop experiences. I'm learning so much and most definitely inspired. By your work, as well as the instructor's.

Bravo for all the work you're doing to develop your work and this blog!

Adam Cope said...

Carol

Thanks for the posts. Your trainers shoes are "better" than his, IMO. Something to do with the attached shadow going over the step?

As an occassional workshop tutor myself, it was refreshing to hear that Charles Reid had the courage & the confidence to do three hour long demonstrations. There's a lot of talk about painting but sometimes to watch an experienced painter counts for more than the talk, no?

BTW, I bet that when he was starting off with his darkest darks he'd plotted in his mind's eye where the lightest lights/blank paper were as well, at the same time.

maria said...

Thank you for sharing your work and lessons learned. I can't wait to follow up with finding more info/a book.. about Charles Reid. You made it look so easy...

SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 2009

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)



4 COMMENTS:

Mona said...

Carol, so sorry to hear it is tough behind the scenes, and I do hope things will improve. I hope your daughter is okay too. Take care, Mona

Sandi Hester said...

Carol, I've really been looking forward to seeing the posts on the last two days, but when I read that there were some hard things going on with your family my heart broke. I'm so sorry to hear that. Please let me know if I can be praying for anything - I really mean that.

laura said...

What a beautiful drawing of your parents! (I should have read this post first!)
I'm so sorry about your family troubles and hope everything will work out well and soon. Best regards.

A Brush with Color said...

I'm a big Charles Reid fan, and so when I saw your thumbnails on ?someone's blog,? I popped right over to see these. Your work is really strong...beautiful! Sounds like a good class. I'm sorry to read that you had difficult personal issues to deal with that weren't part of the workshop. Thanks for your wonderful photos and explanations. Wonderful.

SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2009

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










9 COMMENTS:

Cathy Gatland said...

That seems crazy that people wouldn't get every single ounce they could out of a C.R. workshop, and leave early... but thanks so much Carol for giving us this look into your experience, it's really a privilege as I doubt I'll get to one myself.
I'm sorry to hear that you've had family troubles, may it be well.

Sandi Hester said...

Carol, the last two posts were worth the wait! Will you be posting anything from the Pat Weaver workshop? I would love to hear how the two workshops compared. Also, thank you so much for doing these posts - they really helped me prepare for the Reid workshop I'm going to next month. If you have any other advice you'd like to pass on to help me prepare for the workshop please shoot me an e-mail - I would love to hear anything you have to pass on!

laura said...

I just love your painting of the couple by the car--the woman's face is beautiful, as are all the colors and the man's hand around her waist.
Thanks for posting your classmates' work too: some stunning work there.

maria said...

Another thank you for sharing your workshop experience. I love what you are working on and can't wait to see it finished. Lovely!

Nancy Van Blaricom said...

Another great post. I'm always amazed when watching his work from start to finish how beautiful they turn out. I always gasp when I see his first bold stroke of color go on the paper ... then next you know, there is a beautiful peice of work before you. What a master.

I love your sketch in prep for the larger work. I think you have made his class easy to learn from. I'm sure I'll re-read each Charles Reid workshop post many times trying to gleen information from them. Thank You.

Victor Fernandez Retuerto said...

My congratulations on your blog. Very educational and entertaining. Charles Reid is one of my favorite painters and I appreciate all the information displayed. I hope to visit your blog often. Add your blog to my links to have always available. Greetings.

Lyn said...

Thanks for your blog posts, Carol! I think your photos are very detailed, and I appreciate your posting them. It really brings it all back. Now if I could just get in some solid painting time!
Lyn (from Alabama!)

Donna said...

Thanks for posting your Charles Reid experience! I am a wannabe CR and also hope to get to one of his workshops one day--they fill so fast!

I love your still life on the easel in prep for the workshop. I also paint on a tripod easel, but I cannot figure out how you got the water buckets on there. Can you explain or provide a close up? Thanks.

Andrea Longhi said...

great works! I'll come again :)

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