Clayton Beck III Portrait Workshop

From Thursday September 18th until Tuesday September 23 I was a participant in Clayton's Portrait workshop. 6 Days of painting from a life model. Heaven.
I do not get to paint from life models that often so that part was sure bliss.
The only model I have found in these parts of the woods is myself. And really painting a self-portrait really is not as easy as it sounds.
When painting one needs to step away from the easel all the time to judge what's gone onto the canvas, compared with what one is painting. As soon as you step away from the canvas, and mirrors used to paint yourself, everything changes and it becomes rather difficult to compare, judge, squint and the like.
So painting with models was a real pleasure.

The main focus during the workshop remained on light and shadow. As in: What of the model is in shadow, what is in the light. Squint to see the shapes of light and dark etc. We had 2 set-ups; one with cool tube light and one with hot spot light. The models would be with us all day but change sides after lunch. We would stay at our easel throughout the day and swapped the following day. Thus painting one day of hot light and one day of cool light.

The first day started with Clayton doing a demonstration in the cool light set-up. We had a lovely Canadian girl Nell sitting for us and it was great to see her appearing on the canvas.
This is the demo after about 3 hours.





















After lunch it was our time to paint and this was as far I as got before having to race out to get to the bus in time to get my connecting train home. (I had opted to commute instead of trying to dogde trafic at peak hour.)











The second day we painted both morning and afternoon focussing on Light and Shadow, with the models changing spots after lunch.

Of all the work I did during those 6 days I believe the painting from the morning of that second day was the strongest. I worked uninterrupted and freely, completely in the "zone" and even managed to get a decent like-ness.












In the afternoon I just happened to go for a more monochrome work.
At some stage the light shinging on my canvas made it impossible to see past the glare. Luckily I had brought my French easel and got tip the canvas al the way forward, with me painting in a more or less upside down manner. Oh what Fun.





On the way home that second day the train driver sounded like he could have come from India.
My thoughts trailed of and I was thinking how interesting it would be to be painting people from different cultures during this workshop. I do like the people from India, I think they have an inner grace and beauty about them that one does not see too often.
You can just imagine my surprise to see that our models for day 3 were from India.

Again on day 3 we were painting Light and Shadow.
I was in the cool-light section of the room again and while our groupd of 9 were painting Simon, Clayton was painting along on the other side of the room in the hot light where the girl was.

This is my effort for the morning painting Simon:


And the girl in the afternoon, whose name I unfortunately did not get:








And the little miniature Clayton painted of her that morning:










On the morning of day 4 Clayton did a demonstration of Haley.
The set-up was in the cool area again and he had slightly changed the position of the tube lights. We were still focussing on Shadow and Light.










It was way past lunch time when we had a break after which we could try our hand on the models again. That day the models did not swap places, with Haley staying on the cool side and the brought in model, a friend of one of the girls sitting for us on the warm side. We started very late and I needed to get out early to get the train which runs a different time schedule during the weekends.
I felt that with a bit more time I could have done something really nice with this lady. She had never sat before, was under a hot spot light while the temperature had risen quite nicely to above 30 degrees C. She did so well.








During the afternoon Clayton set himself up again to do another sketch of Haley, this time in monochrome Transparent Oxide Red (Rembrandt Oils) He could not finish it that afternoon and was asked by Haley to finish it of later that night.
This is what he finished with:









On day 5 I was in the Cool-light section again and the morning started with Ross





Followed in the afternoon by this lady, whose name I did not get.





I had hoped that I could have more time with her somehow, somewhere, so it was a delight to see her again the morning of the last and 6th day. Unfortunately I was in the same painting spot and had to adjust myself.

We were all set up and painting time had started when it appeared that Clayton had set up his easel again to paint along.
He had the model set up in the hot light wearing the Akubra hat he had bought and really liked.
I did not get a photo of that painting.

I was painting and doing okay, then all the people from our side of the room started moving to where Clayton was painting leaving just myself and one other participant painting this nice lady. I had hoped that I would have been able to have her for one more day.Unfortuanetely I was not in the same position for we had to swapp around again but there was something about her that really made me want to paint her.
Lunch break was very late, and by the time we were to start the afternoon session I really did not feel well and having come in by car I decided to pack up and go while I was still safe to be behind the wheel.

It was quite an experience and I enjoyed being with such a nice group of people, 21 in total, and all of them very enthusiastic about their endeavours. It was wonderfullto paint from life models and learning so much from them.
It was good.
I did not come away with the best paintings I'd ever done but I never expected that to happen. Afterall how much can you do in such a short period of time when you are still learning. I am pleased though with what I managed to do and what I learned from it.