Exploring Drawing Studies to Inform Your Painting

This series of two weekend workshops is to be experienced as a complete approach to developing ideas for your painting. Through initial drawing and studies for the first week, followed by execution of the painting the second week. This connected multidisciplinary approach aims to expand one's creative vocabulary and to help integrate compositional ideas into your painting practice.

The workshop for the first week will build knowledge and provide ideas for the best approach to drawing using charcoal, small sketches, colour studies - that can then be used to research subjects for painting. The drawing element will include compositional studies, gestural line studies, tonal design studies and colour studies of your subject. The workshop will start with a series of drawing exercises to find structure and your dynamic composition. This is followed by a series of preparatory ink studies that enable spontaneity and direct mark making to find gesture and line in the subject.The drawing can then be expanded into mixed media works using all water based media. This will enable students to discover subjects of interest for their work be it landscape, interior, still life, portraits or abstraction. The drawing tools that will be developed can then be utilised in the week between the first workshop and the second as a means to develop studies for the second week of painting.

For the second week the workshop will focus on a major work in the form of painting on board or canvas. Utilizing the studies from the previous week you may want to work on a small series of paintings or look at one larger major work. Expect to start your painting like never before and to expand your sense of colour, line and form. We will look at pallet work and colour mixing exploring colour theory and discuss restricted palettes from master painters such as Elisabeth Cummings.

What to Bring

Subject Material :

For the first week, bring a selection of drawings, studies, and photographs to explore and discuss for composition. This can include landscape, still life, interior, portrait, or abstraction. Use these materials to develop drawings, compositional studies, and ink works. Between the workshops, create new drawings and studies for use in the second week of painting.

Drawing:

You will need charcoal, pastels, and sketching paper (sketchbook or loose cartridge paper). For ink and mixed media, bring heavier cotton-based paper (like Canson or Stonehenge) and a selection of ink brushes. Bring your own watercolors, gouaches, or inks; Ash will provide sepia, Indian ink, and calligraphy ink, as well as non-toxic dry pigments.

Painting:

Bring your paints, palette, brushes, medium, and painting rags. For watercolor and gouache, no medium is needed. For acrylics, you could use Matisse Open Medium or any slow-drying medium. For oils, bring odorless solvent (like Gamsol) and Stand Linseed oil. I suggest two variations (warm & cool) of yellow, red, and blue, plus white and burnt or raw umber to mix a black.

Ash recommend two palettes: clear perspex, traditional wooden, or disposable. For oil painters, consider a palette you can transport with wet paint to avoid discarding unused paint.

 For watercolor and gouache, bring two or three brushes: a small round, a Chinese calligraphy brush, and a wide brush.

For oil and acrylic, bring a variety of brushes, including firm hog hair and softer synthetic ones, plus one or two large, inexpensive house painting brushes.

Also, bring at least two palette knives.

Keep your support size manageable, ideally between 30-50cm if using board or canvas.

Before the workshop, consider applying a colored ground to your canvas or board.

Budget-friendly options include primed paper (no less than 300GSM), primed stretched canvas, or canvas boards. If your canvas or board isn't primed, or if working with acrylics or oils on paper, you'll need gesso to prime it.

Please note this list is only a guide to materials and you do not need everything listed here.