New workshop ideas

I’m on the path to burnout again and I don’t even have a deadline! Here I am stepping back and not working on the kangaroo tonight.

Now that I am here though, (still resting but full of sugar so not ready to sleep) I will use my time to brainstorm some workshop ideas.

I have an opportunity to teach art classes next year. They can be whatever I want. I get the space for free. It is at an already established business that has run art classes before.

What could I teach? Hmm. An easier question is ‘what do I already know?’

Painting a diamond: I could teach the students how to draw a brilliant-cut diamond on canvas, do the grisaille layer and then layer other colours on top. How to leave some space white, when to use white paint. When to stop looking at the reference image. How to keep it loose - it is not a photo. How to make it their own.

• The canvas is already cut to size. They stretch it on supplied hardboard with painter’s tape

• Make swatches of the colours available and the importance of this - get a feel for how each colour behaves, how to refer to the swatches in the planning process, etc.

• How to thin the paint - when to use water, when to use a medium

• Importance of leaving white space, how to look at a colour and see it in layers of the paint colours available

• How to measure and draw a circle on the canvas, then how to draw the facets of the diamond with pencil.

• Background layer #1

• Diamond wash

• Background layer #2

• Diamond Grisaille

• Background layer #3

• Diamond colours

• Background layer #4

• White paint and diamond ‘fire’

• Final touchups and signing

• Isolation coat and varnish

• Stretching the canvas

I’ll have to figure out how many hours this will take and how many sessions the students will need.

Is this something you’d be interested in? Do you have any ideas for what else needs to be in the curriculum? Let me know in the comments! Thanks :)