For Me Portrait Painting with Fred Bell is Great Fun

by Judith Reidy

This man is not Fred Bell! way too much hair

I did this oil portrait this last Tuesday at the Milwaukee Sketch Club open studio session, while Fred and others drew or painted the gentleman.
Not bad, in so far that I have been out on the back patio doing still life's of pots and fruit and outside painting Plein Air landscapes all summer.

I feel privileged to have been painting with Fred Bell at various events and outings this past season. Starting on Thursday October 1, next week, I will be beginning Fred Bell's Official Class on Portraiture. He has prepared to have live models sit for us. He has much to share.

I am real excited about the upcoming 4 week Portraiture Class.

If you are interested in studying portraiture with Fred Bell,

check out
http://bellart.com/bellart.com/classindex.html
and contact him.
He is a great teacher!

Judith Reidy's Plein Air Paintings from Greg LaRock's Workshop at Peninsula School of Art in Door County

This is the first three of six paintings I created during the workshop this month in Door County.

Greg La Rock Plein Air Workshop at the Peninsula School of Art in Door County

Greg LaRock,

National Award Winning Plein Air Artist
from Southern Californina

As many of you may know I spent the earlier part of the month, September 12-16 up in Door County at a Plein Air Workshop with Greg La Rock at the Peninsula School of Art. It was a tremendous opportunity.

I would like to begin by sharing with you a slide show of Photos I took as Greg did a demo for the group of students. Greg was a great instructor, clear yet flexible in teaching. What interested me the most was his ability to talk through his thinking while he was painting, allowing us to "hear" him "weighing his choices" as he buildt his painting. I found being able to hear him "weigh out his choices" extremely insightful. I heard him think through what he wanted to make out as the over arching story in his painting...how he wanted to identify and keep his focal point as he built his painting. I heard as he created his plan and watched how he used the preliminary drawing to begin to flesh out his plan. I saw how he evaluated the foreground, middle ground and background values, temperature and colors to keep within their "space" while maintaining his focal point.

I wish I had an audio to accompany these slides. I certainly don't want to give you the impression that Greg style of teaching insisted on one right solution to building a plein air landscape painting. It would be better to say he gave students some framework and tools to use when they made choices when planning and building a Plein Air landscape painting. He encouraged every student to discover their personal response to the landscape before them and then create a story that would capture and hold their audience. If I painter wanted the viewer to focus on particular aspect of the landscape or days light, as an instructor Greg gave us the evaluation tools to begin to make the design and technical choices to do so. We talked about everything from conception of idea, to design on the canvas to brush handling and mediums that would facilitate what we were after.
I hope you enjoy Greg LaRocks demo.


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