William Scott, CBE, RA was an abstract painter who drew from the things in his life: frying pans, pears, boats, and the human figure. Often the frying pans looked like boats and the table looks like a harbour. The tutor, Michael Weller, refers to William Scott’s mid to later work as an inspiration for his work. Scott was influenced by Rothko and Bonnard. He was also inspired by Cezanne’s tilting table for still lifes. Line, shape, and colour are the driving influences uniting these artists.
This two day weekend workshop will focus on painting things on a tabletop. You will pare things down a bit, just lines and colours and see what happens. To find out more take a look at the William Scott Website, run by his family.
- Tutor, Michael Weller NEAC
- Saturday 14th, and Sunday 15th November
- 10.00 – 16.00
- Mottisfont Village Hall
- £240/2 day workshop
- Tea, Coffee, and biscuits, plus a light lunch included
- Lots of parking
- Suitable for all standards
What to expect from – Inspired by William Scott, Line, Shape and Colour
There are tables and easels at Mottisfont Village Hall. The tables will be prepared with potential still life items. Michael will do demonstrations on both days. You will be encouraged to draw and sketch, pare down the shapes, simplify, work on colour studies. Michael will go around the class talking to all students, one-to-one.
Day one: You will be doing lots of line drawings, and studies from the items on the tables. These are followed by colour studies.
Day two: You will use the drawings and colour studies to work up into paintings. Michael will show you how this works. Michael’s work has a freshness to it that comes from exploration, and preparation. As with William Scott’s work, the apparent simplicity is the result of measuring and observing; doing the preparation.
Materials
Michael paints with oils. You can use acrylic, watercolours, or pastels – whatever works for you.
Day 1 – drawing, line and shape
- Small to medium sketchpads, A5 is ideal. Or scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, if you like.
- Black Bic pen, Pentel brush pen, biro, Sharpie, or any sort of black pen, brush, cartridge driven.
- chunk of compressed charcoal
- Soft Pastels. Jackson’s soft pastels are good value.
- Little Brian Paintsticks are cheap and good for blocking in colour (Amazon)
Michael loves to try new materials but it is fine to use whatever you have to hand.
Day 2 – painting, colour
There are easels and boards.
Oil paint. This is Michael’s preferred palette: Zinc white. Gamblin or Jackson’s lemon yellow. Rose Madder. Cobalt blue hue. 60ml tubes or bigger, and at least twice as much white.
Michael uses Jacksons Artists colours. Use the brand you like.
Low-odour oil-paint solvent – not turps or white spirit. A small jar for the oil solvent. Zest-It or Sansador are fine.
Brushes. Good to have some bigger brushes.
I like long filbert brushes, household brushes, palette knife, rags, newspaper, hands and fingers.
Small painting surface, up to 10 x 12 inches. I like cardboard with two coats of acrylic primer on either side. Not corrugated card. But use the surface you like to use. Have your painting surface the same size as a page of your sketchbook, or paper. If you draw on both pages of the sketchbook, that size is good. If one page, that size.
Palette or mixing surface. Paper tearaway palette is great. Wooden palette fine.
Kitchen paper or rags. (Bucket or bag for rubbish)
Plastic disposable gloves are great.
Apron is good. Don’t be like me and not wear an apron.
Some hand gel to wash your paint-covered hands.
If you have any questions please contact: Email Kate Measham