"Towards Kenbane"

"Towards Kenbane"
Spectacular Irish coastline on a stormy day

Monday 29 July 2013

"Discovery Art Workshop" at SeaView Gallery!

At the end of June we had a successful Art Workshop, held over two days in my studio at SeaView Gallery in Ballycastle. I had the pleasure of hosting this event for four wonderful, very talented, lovely ladies. Apart from all the laughter and dry wit, we had fun dabbling and experimenting with a fairly wide range of mediums - hence the Workshop being named "Discovery Art". The whole idea was to give everyone a chance to step outside their normal painting comfort zone and 'discover' what was possible by utilising different styles and mediums.
To the best of my knowledge, my "students" not only enjoyed the two days, but actually learned a few things along the way! Pretty amazing when you take into consideration that three of the ladies are elected members of the "Ulster Society of Women Artists" [uwa] and, all four are accomplished artists!
You know 'that' feeling when something finally works out [or not] the way you want it to!
We started Day One with a fun exercise - spending the morning painting individual interpretations of the proverbial apple, using watercolour. The end results were amazingly different, and entirely a result of four very personal painting styles. It just proves how variable the 'eye of the artist' really is! After lunch the ladies started on a painting of their own chosen subject, each with a different medium and style - we had everything from fine art realism to loose impressionism. I, of course, tried not to bore anyone with the mini demos and 'technical-type talks' in between! Day Two saw a continuation of the ladies' work, interrupted for tea/coffee/lunch and another mini acrylic seascape demo by yours truly. The Workshop ended with four really impressive paintings [not forgetting the 'apple' interpretations as well]. I wanted everyone to pose with their work so I could take a pic for the record... SO....after some pleading, encouragement [and even more hilarity] here are the results. Of course I only told everyone I was going to post their pics online, AFTER I took them!
I so enjoyed these two days and look forward to meet up with the ladies in the near future!