You still have time to join the first of this year’s Watermill at Posara unique online, interactive painting sessions this Thursday, in which the American watercolourist and Watermill tutor Randy Hale will show you how to produce vibrant paintings from commonplace photographs. To join up, please just click here.
Randy has just sent us the montage above, showing the original photograph of our scene (the famous dome of the cathedral in Florence, Italy), a line drawing and his lively sample painting.
Randy says: “I’m ready to go on Thursday. I hope you can join me, painting along and having fun as well as learning.â€
On today’s theme, he says: “Cameras are mechanical and capture every detail. Our job as artists our is to simplify, to make a ‘busy’ photo a much more interesting painting. We’ll work with a view of the duomo in Florence, using a limited palette of complementary colors.
“Understanding where light originates allows us to transform our subject (caught on a cloudy day) into one that paints the light with a lot of drama. Rather than focusing on details within the photo we will reduce our subject to basic shapes. And value contrasts bring necessary definition, while color charging washes introduce reflected light that glows.â€
Randy will walk everyone through this painting in stages, brushstroke-by-brushstroke. Please click here to join him.
Unlike many online painting tutors, Randy will not expect you to ‘look over his shoulder’ for a long demonstration, and perhaps be allowed to ask the odd question or two. No, you will be painting along at more or less the same time, trying out the watercolour techniques that Randy shows you, step-by-step. He will demonstrate some basic techniques for only a few minutes before you start painting the same subject at home. Then, after you’ve been given a little time to catch up, Randy will move onto the next part of the process. Lois Breckon from The Watermill at Posara will be on hand during the session to feed your questions. The session will last about three hours.
When you register for the session, you will be asked for a donation. Some people ask how much this should be. It is up to you, but we do suggest a minimum donation of £20 GBP (English pounds). Our Zoom painting demonstrations do take quite a bit of time in preparation and administration and your support is very much appreciated. With your generosity we can plan and run further sessions and, more importantly, provide a regular meeting place for creativity, camaraderie and fun. We hope that you enjoy the international, online painting community that we have created.
Once you have registered you will be provided with two links. The first is the Zoom link for you to join the session. Please note that the start time is 5pm European time, that is, 4pm (UK time, GMT). Please check the precise starting time in your own time zone compared with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
The second link is where you will find the photograph that you will paint, a sample drawing, Randy’s practice painting and a list of equipment and colours for your palette. If you would like to paint along with Randy, be warned that he works fast, and you should have your own line drawing ready before we start.
After the event, you are invited to add your painting to the private gallery, where you will be able to view the same scene uploaded by your fellow painters on Zoom. In addition, we will send you a link to a video that will enable to you revisit Randy’s step-by-step teaching.
To join Randy’s online session, please just click here.
When you have painted with Randy online, why not join him for real at the Watermill in Tuscany Italy this Summer? We would love to welcome you to the Watermill. You can find more details of Randy’s week-long course, from Saturday 11 June to Saturday, 18 June 2022, by clicking here.