Getting Ready for Carole Marine

One of my "heroes" is the Oregon (now) painter Carole Marine  (carolmarine.blogspot.com) . Her ability to put down accurate individual  spots of colour that build to a small interesting piece that reads is quite amazing. I am booked to take a workshop with her in February. Basically, I am an acrylic painter but I do enjoy playing with oils (water soluble) for small pieces, in the studio and plein air. I want to improve my skill to mix and lay down a spot of colour and then leave it and mix and put the correct value and temperature relationship in the spot next to it - and so on.

To get the best bang for my buck in her workshop I have decided to spend at least a few hours each week trying just that - doing exercises of selecting simple subjects and and trying to " lay and leave". Put down a spot of colour and not  blend. Place the next one beside it and so on, to build the piece -  then for corrections lay down spots on top of the others (tiling as I was taught at Watts Atelier) but avoid any blending. These are great exercises that I think will help me in both my acrylics and oils to more accurately mix and create interesting pieces that read. Also, part of the intent is efficiency so I plan to limit the time spent and then just stop.

So here's my first attempt.  Image in my TV as reference; surface black gessoed TerraSkin taped on board 6x8"; drawing using white China Marker; paint watersoluble oil with a bit of linseed. Time after drawing limit 30 minutes. I decided to stick with the head to start as I have not done any oil or portrait pieces in quite a while.

Next I decided to tackle the full image and limit my time to 45 minutes after drawing. Surface is black gesso on canvas board. Backgrounds just a mix of all colours used in the painting trying to hold the value but play with temperature.

I like the effect of playing on black gesso for small pieces.

So much for the first attempt. Lets hope I progress over the next two months.