Mary challenged us to a new way to approach a painting. - first a concept or idea, then a subject.
She walked us through the process she had taken by sharing her sketch book notes and preliminary drawings. These were projected onto a screen and we could slide our eyes to the right and see the finished tryptek hanging on the wall beside us
In the painting room we were guided to try out this approach ourselves. The concept or idea we were given was ‘
the four seasons’ and we were encouraged to plot out how we would present this idea in colour, texture, shapes, with our own personal spin. Once that was worked out, Mary told us what the
subject would be. We were to choose an item from her son’s collection. I chose a brachiopod and wondered for some time how this subject was going to reflect the concept of the
four seasons.
I wish I had taken my camera to this workshop and could show you all the different ways the participants reflected the concept through their subject. I can only mention that there was a great variety of expression. What seemed impossible at the beginning, came to amazing fruition in a few hours.
My brachiopod began to reflect the seasons as I stared at it from all angles. The lines suggested mountains and ski runs. The opposite view suggested water displaced by a speedboat. The edge of the brachiopod began to look like a flower beginning to bloom. Markings on one side of the brachiopod looked like bird footprints at the beach.
I spread gel all over the watercolour paper and gelled four small pieces of watercolour canvas near the center. The long strips represent my favourites, winter and summer, and the smaller ones represent, for me, the transitioning seasons of spring and fall. Only watercolour was used.
This was an excellent workshop!
Thanks Mary & Gallery Lambton..
