Too old is not an excuse

 

Who says you are too old to start painting? This  is only the 4th painting of 82 year old Keith.

He started absolutely from scratch with no painting experience. This what The Paint Basket Art Teaching Studio can do for you. What are your excuses?

Auckland Watercolour Society

Dennis was invited to give a talk on  June 16, 2010 at their monthly meeting. He spoke about the South African Art Scene and after that he gave a critique on the paintings submitted depicting the New Zealand Bush. The majority of the members paintings were of high quality. Both the talk and critique were well received by the members as he also gave advice and hints and tips, where necessary, on improving the paintings. Dennis was given a good write-up in their subsequent Newsletter. He recently became an active member of the Society.

Below is a photograph (taken by his wife Anna) of  Dennis during the talk. Behind him are 2 of his own watercolour paintings of South African scenes.

Watercolour Transparency Chart

Here is a very useful chart  which indicates the relative transparency, which paints stain, and which paints are normally grainy.

This chart shows you how to work with the very bright and extra strong colour of Viridian. Used on its own in a landscape painting it is very out of place and most artists do not know how to manipulate it. Viridian, in landscapes, should always be toned down with another colour.  By mixing these, and other colours, in varying proportions it can produce a  wonderful variety of very useful colours, as can  be seen in the chart above. This also applies to oils colours. Why not make your own chart and try these out for yourself in the colours you normally use? You will be surprised at the results. Happy painting.

Newspaper Clipping

Here is a clipping from the local North Shore Times. This is Dennis' first mention in a Newspaper article, excluding advertising, since coming to New Zealand. When available a photograph of the collaborate art and of his part will be added here.

 

Pretty awesome.

My contribution is on the left of the row second from the bottom.

(added 3 July 2010)

Seascape Workshop - 5 June 2010

On Saturday 5 June The Paint Basket held an interesting workshop where Dennis taught beginners some techniques on seascape painting. They did not have a specific picture to paint from as he wanted them to get in to the habit of not copy-painting. Dennis combined another picture with one of his son's (Nolan) paintings to form the one they eventually painted. It is not always easy for a beginner to paint the sea so that it looks alive. As you can see they did rather well for a day's (approx 5hrs) work. All work was on 16x20" canvas panels.

This is Dennis' demonstration painting. He says it still needs some touch-ups as it is virtually impossible for him to actually do a finished painting in a class situation. You can see next how close many of the participants came to imitating his painting. Here are a few of the student's paintings in progress.

Packing up after a day's hard concentration. Well done!

The next workshop will be on Watercolour Painting to be held on 3 July 2010 at his Torbay studio. Look out for that.

A Taste of what is in store.

The intention for this blog is to add interesting content on what Dennis does, and  is busy doing, as far as drawing and painting is concerned. His passion is art, and if he can help and show someone the way, then he will have achieved  what he has set out to do. For starters here is a  painting he has just completed this week from a photograph taken several years ago in South Africa.

 

This is a watercolour rendering of the photo above.

Size 700 x460 mm on Saunders 300lb Rough paper.

Painting from photographs should not be slavishly copied, colour for colour and brush stroke for brush stroke. Add and/or subtract elements that do not fit in with the composition of the painting. Shift and move them around to form a pleasing arrangement such as he has done in the painting. Painting from a photographic print, as opposed to a colour slide, normally produces a dull painting, therefore it may mostly be necessary to bolster and brighten up the colours. This is exactly what he has done here because the original photograph is much to much a monotone print. It is up to the artist to put his/her feeling and emotion into the work in progress. Make it your own and nobody else's. You are the architect of the painting you are designing and building. Most of all - have fun!