Robert Johnson Painting Workshop At The Art Guild

Due to some crazy life circumstances, I am way behind on posting, but I'm going to go ahead and put up everything I have wanted to post over the last year.

First up, the photos from Robert Johnson's painting workshop at The Art Guild.  I posted our prep for the workshop awhile ago, so here are some pics from the weekend.

Day one started out with Robert doing a demo for the group.  Everyone learned so much that he generously offered to come in an hour early the next two days to continue working on it.  Having a generous teacher who really wants to help the students learn is so important to having a successful workshop.

As you can see, Robert started the painting by blocking in the set up, then started adding color.

After the morning demo, we started on our paintings.  If you recall from my set up post, everyone had their own still life to work on, so we spent the afternoons on those.

This is the set up that I chose.  I did not get very far as I was helping at the workshop and I'm an incredibly slow painter, but since I have access to the props, I will finish it up someday.

Robert also brought a couple of his paintings in so we could see them and study his work.  I so wish I had the $$$ to buy these!  They are really incredible.  Here are a few close up shots.

I'm very lucky to own a few of Robert's drawings, so I brought them in to show everyone even though we were not doing any drawing in class.

Here is Robert with his beautiful demo.  We had such a great weekend.  I'm hoping to do it again some time.  If you are unable to take a workshop, but would like to see more of Robert Johnson's work, he has a beautiful book of his paintings as well as some dvd's available here.

Setting Up For Robert Johnson's Painting Workshop At The Art Guild Of Port Washington

In July, The Art Guild of Port Washington was lucky enough to host Robert Johnson for a very rare New York area workshop.  I have a ton of photos from the workshop itself, but I thought you might like to see how we set up for a still life workshop.

I've been to several workshops where there are no set ups and the students are left to fend for themselves, often with lackluster props.  Also, there can be people in a workshop who are new to still life and may not know how to do a proper set up.   And don't get me started on sharing a set up in an expensive workshop.

When we do still life at The Art Guild, everyone has their own set up, already set up the day before the class starts.

We have a lot of props there as two of us are still life artists and there are also a lot of "community" props, things that people have donated and are for everyone to use.

Luckily, my studio mate is a very talented floral designer as well as a painter, so she is able to buy flowers at a distributor for the classes, and she makes the most amazing floral arrangements.

The first thing I do is get my own supplies together and pack them in my paint box.  It is one less thing to worry about in the midst of everything else that is going on.

Next up is purchasing supplies.  For a still life/floral workshop, we gather a few buckets full of flowers, and a variety of fruit ( lemons, red and green grapes, oranges, apples, etc).

We then get all the props in one place.  Fabrics, vases, small objects, crystal pieces and presentation boards to hold up the fabrics and create a background.

And then it begins.  We spend a LOT of time with the set ups.  It's quite rare that we just pull some objects and fruit and create a set up.  They go through lots of changes.  Fruit, objects and flowers go in and out until the still life is just right.  This can take some time and people often look at us like we are nuts, but what is the point in doing a workshop with all of these beautiful things if you are not going to make it the best it can be, right?

These are some of the set ups that we ended up with.  You may be wondering what the little post it notes on some of the shelves are for.  When using fruit in a still life, I like to include one or two pieces of cut fruit, but I don't want to do that until the morning of the workshop, so we put a mini post it in the spot we want to use for the fruit slice as a reminder.  This way it's easy to just come in and cut the fruit and not have to think about where it belongs.

Two other things I should mention.  Lighting is very important.  In a workshop, there is rarely natural light for everyone, so we use spotlights with daylight bulbs.  We just hook them up at either side of the still life to create shadows and they work very well.  The other is how we actually make the set up.  We use milk crates to create height and then lay wooden shelves on top of them.  If you go to Home Depot, you can just tell them the size you want and they will cut them up right there.  We then stained them with Minwax Dark Walnut.  We clip the fabric to the presentation boards and then you are ready to start styling.

When people see me doing set ups, they will often ask how I know when it's right.  I wish I had an answer to that question, but unfortunately, I don't.  I do follow two basic rules.  The still life should be a triangle and should read from left to right.  But the rest is just having an eye for when it is right.  I take my time with the set ups and if there has to be a ten minute discussion of whether there should be one grape or two on the right side of the still life, that is what happens.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't rush in order to get it done quickly and if something doesn't look quite right, change it.  No need to have anything that drags down the set up.

It is also really helpful to consult books on the type of set ups you want to do.  We had Robert Johnson's book open while we were doing these to make sure they were along the line of what he would want to paint.

In addition to Robert's book,  David Leffel and Sherrie McGraw's books are a great source of inspiration for this type of still life set up, as well as any book on Chardin or the Dutch Masters.  I look at them all the time and they are so helpful.

The students were so happy with the set ups and thanked us for making them available, which was so nice.  I want people at a workshop to be happy and if they are paying for the class, they deserve the best you can give. ( Can you tell I recently had a crappy workshop??? :)

I always love a behind the scenes look, so I hope you enjoyed this one.  I'll have a separate post about the workshop itself.  It was amazing.  If you have any questions about setting up a still life or a workshop, leave me a comment.  I'm happy to try and help!

** I just want to make clear as per the rules that I was not comped in any way for anything in this post.  I paid for the workshop and helped out as a volunteer. The props and supplies that were used were purchased by us or were things we already owned.**

How To Set Up For A Floral Painting Workshop

Last month Gregg Kreutz was back at The Art Guild Of Port Washington, this time for a two day floral workshop.

We had a sold out class, so we needed fourteen floral set ups.  Thirteen for the students and one for Gregg.  My studio mate is a very talented floral designer and we worked together to get everything done for the workshop.

We gathered a ton of flowers, fruit and various vases and objects and got to work.

Once we had everything gathered, we began to do the set ups.  As you can see, the beginnings of a still life set up are not very glamorous.  Several weeks before the workshop, we began collecting milk crates to use as a base.  A few days prior to the workshop, we got the wooden shelves at Home Depot. You just tell them the size you want and how many and they cut them right there.  We then stained them using Minwax Dark Walnut, the same color I stained the shelves in my studio.

My bud Ilene and I work very well together, so we always have fun setting up.  I'm good with still lifes and she is great with flowers, so between us we get it done.

After placing the wooden shelves on top of the milk crates, we put a presentation board behind the crate in order to hold the fabric.  We got these from Staples, but the party store near my house carries them as well.  We draped the fabric over the board and then secured it in place with large clips.

It was then time to get to the flowers and fruit.  We started by picking out a vase that worked with the particular fabric we were working on.  We would then choose flowers that complimented them both and then we would decide if the set up needed anything else.  Some we left with flowers only, others we added fruit, petals, another object or something else.  You can't really decide in advance what you will do.  Once you have your main pieces in place you have to experiment a bit to see what looks the best.

Here are some of our set ups.

This is the set up that I painted

You'll notice in the photo above that there are post it notes on the shelf.  Due to the fact that we did the set ups the day before the workshop, we did not want to leave cut up fruit or petals out an extra night, so we used the post it notes as reminders of what needed to be done the next morning.  They were very specific - "apple slice", "rose petal", "green leaf".  The first morning of a workshop can be a little chaotic and you don't want to have to try and remember what you wanted for the set up.  With the reminder notes you can just get down to business without having to think about it too much.

Gregg starting the workshop with a demo

One tip, make sure you have extra fruit and flowers for the second or third days of the workshop.  Things often have to be replaced, usually cut fruit or some of the stems, and you don't want to be caught short.

Setting up a still life is a lot like being a stylist.  There are two guidelines that I follow:  You want the shape to be triangular and the set up should read from left to right.  After that, it is really a matter of using your eye to see what works.  This takes some time, so don't rush it and don't worry if you don't get it right the first time.  After we set everything up, we went back around to each still life and double checked that everything was in order.  Sometimes things stayed the same, others we adjusted by either adding something or taking something out.  On one of them, we spent some time deciding if we were going to use one grape or two on the shelf.  There was a guy in the office fixing the computer and I'm sure he thought we had gone completely off the deep end, but these tiny details matter.  You don't want a boring or incomplete still life set up, not for yourself and certainly not for a workshop.

We had a great two days painting flowers and the students raved about the set ups.  I was so happy that people really liked them because you want to do the best for your workshop participants. As for my painting, I decided to use a 16x20 canvas so I didn't get very far, but I did manage to get the whole canvas covered and I am working on it now.  Luckily, my floral designer is right across the hall :)

Have any questions about  setting up?  Leave me a comment!