The Dreaded Landscape!! With Joanne Boon Thomas..at Bolton Art Circle

Now a lesser more paranoid woman (think the time when I can still refer to myself as a girl has gone!!) may think Joanne chose a landscape on purpose knowing (as she pointed out to me) that landscapes are way out of my comfort zone, but no..... I prefer to think she was being extremely generous, thoughtful and considerate and wanted to help me develop those skills which have somewhat eluded me!!

Joanne had been invited to an afternoon workshop at Bolton Art Circle..... she hasn't been to us before and  the members were all looking forward to the session.

Here is Joanne's finished painting

The painting was taken from a photo Joanne took very near her home, really nice composition but lacking light which is where she could let her imagination take over. I like the fact that Joanne usually does a practice before she attends any workshop... it is what I do and I find it really helpful especially if the demo doesn't quite happen as I might hope!!! Joanne doesn't have that problem I might add!!

The idea was to use a limited palette, cad red, cad yellow, UB and burnt sienna ..... Jo rarely uses more colours than that in any painting as she feels the colours marry and harmonise better with the more limited palette. I have noticed these are colours Joanne has used before and for those of you wondering about using 2 opaque colours and mixing mud, I defy you to find any mud on any Joannes' paintings!!!

I appreciate these workshops as it gives you an idea of how someone else might approach something and while there are no rights or wrongs it is so helpful to see another way of doing things which you may either not have thought of or may have forgotten about.

Joanne did a very quick sketch first then started with the sky paying attention to the light direction as she worked (in fact she placed an arrow at the top of the piece as a reminder). Always sharing tips hints and most importantly her thought process as she worked, Jo worked thought the piece breaking off at strategic moments for us to have our go... and here are my pieces... the first I lost it with the negative painting around the bg trees so decided to have another go.. I am a speedy painter so managed another attempt where I paid more attention to that bit. Here is the first one.

Need to either dul down the yellow on the right or add a bit more to the left
 and behind the tree then the scary bit of the shadows across the foreground!!

More strengthening of values on this and maybe a bit of softening of the trees in the bg as they look a bit dark, a bit of splattering in the foreground then again a few shadows.

I think this workshop has given me a few tools to have a go at some landscapes for myself, that's what we should use workshops for, to pick up tips and hints from other artists, to pick their brains, some are more generous than others and Joanne is one of the best in that respect.!!!  As my own painting progresses I am finding it more difficult to paint along and do a copy of what I see in front of me which is a  really good thing but there is so much Jo has to share I would always grab the chance of attending one of her sessions!!

I also think Joanne was pleased with the efforts of the group... there were some lovely paintings done... not surprising as there are some very good painters there!!