Each of the mornings of this 2-day workshop with William Duffy, students will meet in the parking lot of the Lyme Art Association building, and then from there, they will drive to a painting site TBD near the building. On site, William will demonstrate the value of making a few miniature (2×3 inch) drawings of your intended design on toned paper with an office pencil and a white charcoal pencil. Since composing is key to the success of any painting, this apporach helps an artist to find a good composition before they begin painting. Once happy with their drawn compositions, students will begin a full-size alkyd underpainting in just a few colors, followed by the final execution in full color, using oil paint. During this whole process, William will answer questions and talk about his painting methods and why he paints this way or that way. This whole painting process takes a few hour. William is excited to teach and demonstrate to students his painting process and to apply to it to their own work in their own way. After each day’s lunch, in the afternoon, and after William’s demonstration, the whole class will paint the same subject (perhaps focusing on something else). William will help each student with his input on how to the extent their work. At the end of each day, there will be a critique, either back at the building or on sight depending on the weather and everyone’s own preferences.

The major points to touch upon are:

• Using a simple four-value approach as a tool in design.
• Understanding the role of color and contrast in the creation of mood.
• Achieving focus through value and color contrast, shape diversity, edge manipulation and thick and thin paint quality.
• Learning to simplify value patterns to achieve unity and impact.
• Discussing the relative merits of various painting tools including brushes and knives, easels, mediums, paint and supports.

Students should think of this workshop as primarily experimenting with a particular process of painting that will help them to better see and control the tonal aspects of painting and design. William knows this sounds highly directed but he has used this particular approach for designing successful paintings, and believes students will want to apply at least some of this approach to their own work. William looks forward to meeting and enjoying painting with the students in this workshop.