While this workshop’s title suggests we will be painting in a more free-form manner (without a preliminary grid or drawing), we will also focus on many other aspects of “freedom” so that your paintings will be more expressive and your painting sessions more enjoyable. For instance, putting temperature before color and edges before detail. Even if you never grid or draw, this workshop will help you better balance the line between being accurate and painterly all while making your paintings look more convincing and interesting.

Many times, when we use a grid or a precise initial drawing, we become “married” to it and are afraid to paint outside the lines. Our painting experience becomes more of a coloring book activity. This limits us and makes us more timid in our brushwork which can show in the final product, even to the untrained eye. Being able to paint over edges–losing the drawing and finding it again–gives us more freedom and, consequently, more expressive paintings.

This isn’t to say that drawing isn’t important–it very much is! But we will be finding that drawing with the right angles and proportions as we paint, as opposed to setting it in stone from the offset. Neither way is more right or more wrong; both approaches are valid. But as with everything, there are advantages and disadvantages, and we will be highlighting and playing with the advantages in a way that will make your painting more confident without changing your individual style. Think of it as an upgrade to what you do now!

This painting workshop will focus on the painting principles used for creating a still life or a portrait of a person or animal.  This workshop is good for both oil and acrylic painters, but if you will be using acrylics instead of oils, please bring a slow drying medium.