Welcome to Flower Painting Foundations!

Important dates:

Workshop sessions: Saturdays, 10:00 am PT - 3:00 pm PT (1-hour lunch break) March 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd.

Critique sessions: Fridays, 5:00 pm PT - 6:00 pm PT March 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th.

Flowers are an incredibly beautiful, fascinating subject for painting - but also extremely challenging and complex! In this intense, 4-day workshop, I will share with you the most critical skills and concepts needed for successful flower painting. These are ideas and practices that I have discovered through my experience of working with flowers as my main subject matter for over a decade.

Each week of this workshop will focus intently on one aspect of floral painting. First, we will practice critical drawing skills that will add life and dimension to our paintings. Flowers can be very complicated - you won't be able to paint them in oils if you can't first draw them with a pencil. Drawing is always the most important aspect of painting!

Next, we will practice monochromatic painting. Understanding value, shape, and edge is crucial for creating compelling compositions and describing believable forms. I will walk you through my process for organizing values, simplifying complex shapes, and using contrasting values to create dimension.

Day three will focus on locating the right color palette for our specific flowers and beginning a final painting. Selecting a limited palette is incredibly helpful when painting difficult subjects. I will show you how to eliminate superfluous colors to simplify your palette to ease the process of mixing hues and values. We will then discuss how to begin the initial layers of a painting, and how to strategize the development of the process.

Day four will cover the next pass of the painting. Building up the painting over several sessions allows for the creation of interesting textures and layered effects. I will show you a few techniques for building beautiful paint application and developing more nuance in your painting.

In addition to the Saturday sessions, you are invited to attend and participate in group critique sessions. These sessions are optional, but provide a valuable opportunity to receive helpful feedback on your work, and to learn from fellow students.

Practicing these basic concepts will bring your paintings to a new level. I hope you enjoy the workshop! Happy painting,

-Catherine

We will focus on drawing concepts as the first topic of the workshop. Though it is easily overlooked, drawing is always the most important aspect of painting.

First, we will learn about gesture and structure and how to use these concepts in the context of flowers. Understanding gesture will add life and movement to your compositions. Thinking and drawing structurally will help create a sense of dimension in your drawings. Using both of these concepts is key to creating beautiful and lively paintings.

Flowers can be very complicated - you won't be able to paint them in oils if you can't first draw them with a pencil. The journey starts here!

Value will be our focus for our second day in the studio. We will work on painting flowers using a monochromatic palette of Ivory Black and Titanium White. Understanding value, shape, and edge is crucial for creating compelling compositions and describing believable forms. I will walk you through my process for organizing values, simplifying complex shapes, and using contrasting values to create dimension.

Day three will focus on locating the right color palette for our specific flowers and beginning a final painting. Selecting a limited palette is incredibly helpful when painting difficult subjects. I will show you how to eliminate superfluous colors to simplify your palette in order to ease the process of mixing hues and values. We will then discuss how to begin the initial layers of a painting, and how to strategize the development of the process.

Day four will cover the next pass of the painting. Building up the painting over several sessions allows for the creation of interesting textures and layered effects. I will show you a few techniques for building beautiful paint application and developing more nuance in your painting.