OILS WORKSHOP WITH OKSANA STEVENS - WRAP UP

What a fantastic workshop!  Oksana was so informative and knowledgeable about colours and the mixing of paint, with information that mostof us had never heard before.  She prepared information packs for all of us, as well as a series of boards, on easels, to explain the principles of creating light in your paintings.  

In this workshop we were to use only the primary colours of red, yellow and blue, plus white, to make all the colours we would need in our painting.  The first thing to do was to mix a warm colour (similar to burnt sienna) to cover the whole canvas with a thin coating (thinned with odourless solvent) and get rid of the scary white!  We then had to wipe back the excess, which created a uniform surface colour and allows the paint to dry quite quickly.  Following this exercise,we stopped for a fabulous morning tea, thanks to Catherine Feder and Narelle Harvey.

After morning tea, Oksana demonstrated the mixing of colours, using only our primaries and white.  We were all amazed at the variety of colours that can be achieved by just using this combination.  She also explained that by using colours that are related to each other, you create a much more harmonious painting.  It was then our turn to mix all our colours.  After lunch we then did our drawing, with paint, the same as the example she had on display and also using the image that Oksana had supplied in our information packs.  She then demonstrated how to start painting shapes, rather than trees and mountains etc, starting with the darkest darkthat was mixed earlier.  The next colour was a lighter, more blue colour for shapes in the background.  We then had to start our own paintings, using our darkest dark mixed with a little of a mix of linseed oil and odourless solvent.  Although we didn’t expect to finish our paintings, we all managed to create paintings that were filled with light and colour.

‍

‍

‍