Weekend Workshop .... Buildings

Old Post Office, Waikouaiti

Last weekend I attended a Drawing/Painting workshop with artist tutor, Friederike Schmaltz of Dunedin. Landscape or buildings come pretty low on my list of favorite subjects to paint BUT, for that very reason, I felt that I sorely needed the discipline of some instruction and practice!

Morning One ... having met up with the seven other attendees we went out and about in the village of Waikouaiti to choose and make sketches of a chosen building. We were given 8 drawing exercises, each to take no longer than 10 - 15 minutes, designed to make us look at the building from different angles and to observe and take note of its surroundings within the environment. Absolutely NO RULERS allowed ... free-hand measuring and drawing only!!! Quite a challenge in itself!

Luckily it was a beautiful day to be sitting at the roadside sketching ...... unlike previous experiences of 'plein air' painting .... where flies, wind, rain or sunburn made for unhappy connotations!, and has forever left me with the view that outdoor sketching is close to punishment! No, it was perfect weather for the job ......

My choice of subject was the Old Post Office, Main Road, Waikouaiti .... this is a very interesting and attractive old building. It is no longer in use as a Post Office, but lives on as home and Gallery of two local artist and potters, Laura and Peter Gregory.

After lunch the first day, and all day on the second, we were asked o draw up and start painting our chosen building on a large ground, minimum A2 size. Choice of Medium was left to us., and I chose to work in acrylics. Friederike went round the class answering queries and pointing out areas where composition and/or execution was not quite working. She is a very good tutor ... encouraging but also critical in a constructive way.

I was reasonably happy my effort although I got some of the proportions of the building a bit wrong (remember - no ruler allowed!), and it certainly needs further work! Because I chose to work on ColorFix paper (this has a good tooth and can be used for painting or pastel works) I intend to switch to pastels when I work on it again.

Old Post Office - a work in progress!