I’ve taken three painting workshops in my life and each has given me something that I needed to progress as a painter:
A figure workshop with Zaoming Wu which taught me how to layer colour and value, modulate edges, and control light. He seldom spoke, relying on his figure demonstration to do all the talking and, because I was paying rapt attention, and took some process shots, I did learn a lot. It was early in my oil painting experience and I didn’t have the fundamentals of the medium under control yet, so watching an experienced oil painter work was invaluable; especially one who layered wet-in-wet.
A portrait workshop with Ignat Ignatov which taught me how to paint faces that have form, integrated features, warm and cool colour distinctions, and much more. Ignat is a logical painter with the ability to talk and paint at the same time and I learned so much over 5 days at The Scottsdale Artists’ School that it’s impossible to choose just a few of my take homes.
He was also generous with his time after each day’s lessons, going out for meals and gallery walks with a few of us, talking about what he liked about the paintings we saw, what it was like to be a full-time artist, and more.
Lastly, I took a 2-day masterclass workshop with Alex Kanevsky at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts during which he barely touched brush to board, yet managed to help me see that what I should aspire to is painting with honesty, alertness, and a focus on the artwork for its own sake.
Two or three times during the workshop - pardon my vagueness, it’s been years - Kanevsky pulled the group out of the studio where we were painting live models, to look at slides of work by artists that he admired. It was an eclectic mix of famous historical and contemporary (I remember a strange, Ingres painting with a woman posing serenely while a volcano erupted in the window view behind her and a grotesque nude by Jenny Seville, in which he admired the technical skill of a bent foot), along with several artists who were not widely known.
In each image, he pointed out what that painter seemed to be intent on exploring - I almost said “for the viewer” but that was not what he was about. All that mattered was that artists try to bring their observations, obsessions, thoughts, feelings… anything that was happening in their brains, into the world in some tangible form. What the world did with it was not the artists’ concern.
I recall a painting of a woman in a floral robe, rising from a bed. The figure was painted twice “because the artist liked the gesture so much that he wanted to do it again” (I’m paraphrasing), and the patterned robe was finished to a high degree in one area (“because he was so interested in that floral design”) and left virtually unpainted in another (“because he lost interest in it”).
My notebook from that workshop is filled with notes, some illuminating and some cryptic:
You should make each marks the way that Elizabeth Taylor married each husband: with absolute commitment. If you don’t feel that total commitment, put the brush down.
Running with scissors.
Actually, I do remember what this meant. Kanevsky was talking about the need to paint with a concept in mind. The same subject approached with two different concepts will yield two dramatically different paintings. Imagine a painting of a reclining nude from an artist whose concept was “running with scissors” and one with the concept “intimacy”.
My notebook is filled with thoughts about how to paint with honesty and alertness.
The first two workshops taught me how to paint, but I came away from this, my last workshop, with a sense of why I should paint and what I should be thinking as I work.
Since the workshop, Kanevsky has been in my head and my studio practise, so when this retrospective of his work from 2003 - 2022 was published by Dolby Chadwick Gallery I had to buy it. Money well spent.
It’s a quality hardcover with excellent reproductions of work that I’d previously only seen online - which is very far from what a painting looks like in life. Backlit screens: don’t get me started.
It brought back a lot of ideas from that weekend workshop and it reminded me to be brave. The paintings in this book are both brave and personal. I have no idea of the concept he was exploring with this piece, and I know he’d say that fact doesn’t concern him at all. He didn’t make it for me, he made it for himself, and if it satisfied him enough to call it finished, then it’s a successful painting.
Here are a few images from that book including my favourite knees in paint:
Happy painting!
Beautifully said! I wish I had taken Kanevesky's workshop. Thank you for sharing these insights and experiences.
Ingrid you are a wealth of knowledge and experience. Appreciate the resources you share with all of us on your artistic journey… your thoughts and insights continue to add new dimensions to my artistic tool belt.