Art Holiday at Dalvaro Art with Francesco Fontana: Day One

I recently attended an amazing art workshop.  Although I didn't produce anything worth posting, I got a lot of good ideas and feel that my art will be improved....significantly.  The was  location was Las Orquideas in Beniganim, Spain.  Our hostess was Loli Alvaro, and the workshops are Dalvara Art Holidays.  There will be more about that in my travel blog   http://carolynstravelog.blogspot.com, though it isn't there yet.

Francesco Fontana was the tutor.  He is a classic watercolorist with an interest in painting plein air.  I had been familiar with his work and been on his mailing list for a few years.

The workshop began with an overview of Francesco's work.  He demonstrated how to plan a painting using a value sketch to simplify the subject, suggesting that the value sketch should have three to five values. Of course, I have been told to make a value sketch many times, and sometimes I do.  This demonstration and the exercise following it showed me why it is so important.  As Francesco pointed out, a good value sketch provides a plan to evaluate progress.  If it is done well, a painting can be made using the value sketch without regard to the subject.   This was a little hard at first but, but the end of the week, I was a believer. Above left is Francesco's demonstration of a thumbnail value sketch of a vase in the window.  Another tip was that cell phone camera in the monochrome mode can be used to clarify values.

The next phase is to determine whether the colors are predominately warm or cool and then, using a limited palette (more about that later) make the painting. Francesco made the small watercolor sketch on the right, using his value sketch rather than the vase itself.  He explained that the fewer brush strokes you use, the more effective your painting will be.

We then had a big beautiful Spanish lunch and a siesta.  When we reconvened, we went into the garden to practice value sketching and painting a composition with five elements.  I did some passable sketches, but didn't get to the painting stage.   I didn't keep the sketches.  I felt I would do better as the week progressed.