Kingfisher Painting Workshop Melbourne
With the years workshop calendar at an end, we decided to go ahead and offer one more special event exploring Kingfisher Illustration to take 2023 out in style… and boy was it popular! Booking out in a day, it seems plenty of you are keen to take on this beautiful challenge with me and Im so excited about it too.
So today is the day, leaving my studio to train plane and automobile it down to Melbourne, where the weather is expected to be hot, cold, sunny… and also 70% thunderstorms and rain. Yes, the state of 4 seasons in a day seems set to live up to its reputation, but thats ok. We have ourselves a lovely studio space to work from for the next 3 days, surrounded by the ever interesting, bustling inner city, full of ridiculously good food, beautiful architecture, artistic laneways and character in every direction.
The focus for this event is the stunning Kingfisher. By request, the Kingfisher is one of the most intricate and challenging pieces weve tackled in a workshop, but my knowledge hungry students are up for it, and I am so keen to jump in and show you all through the process. Im really looking forward to seeing the growth and results, as well as seeing you all again.
What a lovely bunch of people I have in this workshop. I honestly feel like I say this with every group, but its true! Beautiful, focussed, positive people means I am able to share and teach so much in our time together and today was such a lovely start. We walked through the drawing stage together then progressed into rendering the eye, beak and start of the kingfishers head. The questions, conversations and effort of my students was inspiring to me and despite being in this early stage of our paintings, Ive already seen people make some real shifts and improvement in their work.
Weve looked at drawing, materials, painting techniques, constructing our painting and subject throughout the painting process, creating textural edges, defining areas, applying small washes, small layers of glazes, and some basic dry brushing. Stepping into simple colour use, we talked about pigment rich and pigment poor colour use, relationships of colour, and we learned about how we can simplify colour as beginners to something really manageable.
Continuing on with our Kingfisher painting over the final 2 days, we looked at how to achieve great results in similar areas, using some alternative approaches and painting techniques to meet your ability. This helped to deconstruct complexity and to understand the multitude of ways we can tackle a painting challenge and achieve great results…. and I saw so much growth, improvement and enthusiasm with every challenge faced. Its just wonderful.
We came so close to completing our studies, covering every facet needed to paint… pretty much every bird subject in this workshop! The lessons learned will carry over to everything that will come. Practice makes perfect, but at least were moving on the right track 👌🏼
My time in Melbourne came to an end as the rain continued to close in. Hot, cold, sunny, wet… We are just pleased to see Melbourne rising back to its good old self again. You feel lighter despite the cloudy days, brighter despite rain, back to the spirit that was always Melbourne by all accounts this trip ❤️
Getting home remains another struggle. Thanks to Virgin totally giving its passengers the right run around once more, I have been stranded in Launceston this time, trying to get home to Sydney for 48 odd hours and counting. Its ridiculous. A few coffees, a couple of wines, a long hike in the rain to Cataract Gorge, the fragrance of a million stunning Springtime roses in bloom eased my irritation, 10 hours of spectacular cloud watching calmed my inners as I wait for my – yet again delayed flight home, I remain optimistic Ill make it home tonight. Pray for me!
Melbourne, you were a pleasure. Thank you so much to every one of my wonderful students for making it such a lovely visit and workshop… especially helpng me wrap 2023 up so nicely… but I will see you again very soon! Actually, I will be back early 2024 to play with Gouldian Finch Illustration over 3 more days, so if youd like to join me for that please let us know. Ill see you in the wash 💙
Our workshop Kingfisher Illustration in watercolour is completed (and sold 🙏🏻)
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whats next for melbourne???
