Ingrid Christensen Workshop

Yesterday, nine women (three of them Lindas) assembled in a studio at the University of Calgary's Art Building for Ingrid Christensen's day long, Painting the Figure from Life workshop.

Tami modeled for Ingrid's first demo

Ingrid is an excellent instructor who has the rare ability to talk and paint at the same time.  It was a delight to hear her articulate what she was doing while doing it.  She made it all look so easy, which, as expected, wasn't as we found out when we tried employing her approach.  I learned a tremendous amount by watching her develop paintings in her loose, impressionistic style and wondered if I could emulate it.  Of course not!  Not exactly, but it was hugely beneficial for me to try; to paint using large filbert brushes with just four colours (plus white).

Ingrid painted Susen's portrait for her afternoon demo

The premise was to suggest elements as opposed to painting every detail.  To pay close attention to warm and cool colours and  their relationships to one another.  To establish the darkest darks and lightest lights. To begin by painting thinly and then build the work by painting around the figure/features as much as actually painting them.  To build the painting with successively, thicker layers of paint "tickled" on and then strategically place thick "pieces" of paint.

My morning painting   oil   20" x 16"

I have to add that not only is Susen a beautiful model she can remain impressively still.

My afternoon painting   oil   16" x 20"

Please visit Ingrid's website at ... http://www.icartstudios.com/

See the entire photo essay here ...
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