Seascape Painting Workshop: En Plein Air & In Studio

Workshop Description

This 3-day intensive workshop covers all of the key aspects of seascape and maritime painting, both in studio and en plein air. You will begin to appreciate the relevance and benefits of both working environments in order to create beautiful seascapes. You will also learn solid composition, colour theory and painting techniques that will be tried and tested both in the field and in the studio.

Maritime & Seascape Painting Tradition

We will briefly overview the maritime / seascape painting tradition, taking inspiration and lessons from some of its greatest masters:

• J.M.W. Turner (English, 1775-1851)
• Ivan Aivazovsky (Russian, 1817-1900)
• Joaquin Sorolla (Spanish, 1863-1923)
• Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
• Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910)

Schedule 

On the first day, you will be shown different painting concepts and methods, and their practical application for the outdoors. You will then have two full days painting en plein air (or ‘in the open air’ i.e. outdoor) where you will create vivid and accurate painterly sketches directly from the motif.

Day two will be spent at Annestown Beach, painting the open sea, the beach, headlands, and more. For the third and final day, we will locate ourselves at Boatstrand, which has a sleepy harbour and also offers different vantage points of the coastline and wider sea views.

Learning Outcomes

Painting demonstrations will guide you step-by-step through the painting process, and practical issues including my own personal and professional tips for painting outdoors will be covered. For example:

• How to paint water in different forms: from waves to relatively still watery surfaces
• How to add depth with colour gradients and edge conditions
• How to balance the sky, the sea, and the land (beach, cliff and headland)

You will also learn the most important compositional aspects of seascape painting, beginning with how to select suitable scene and vantage point. Some of the learning features of this workshop include:

• Working from pencil sketches to monochromatic painted exercises to limited colour palette paintings to expressive full colour paintings
• Seeking out spatial cues in any scene that will lead to a successful painting: volume, scale, overlap (or interposition) and linear perspective
• Interpreting shape and mass of waves and cliffs
• The importance of value and tonal relationships, which show the fall and effect of light and shadow, will be emphasised from the beginning
• The benefits of working sight-size
• Learning how to mix colours so that they remain true to their subject
• Reviewing the basics of colour theory, primary colour biases, colour temperature, and transparencies and opacities of paint colours, and in different mediums
• Developing strategies to help you to respond quickly to light and colour, helping you to simplify value, hue and chroma, and to heighten your awareness of temperature changes in the scene