Learning to Push the Paint

Marsh Study One 8x10 oil 

Tree Line Study One oil

Marsh Study Two 8x10 oil 

 At the end of June I attended a workshop offered by Kami Mendlik of St. Croix River School of  Painting. It was a wonderful 3 days of trying to absorb new techniques and approaches. As in the title of this post, we were learning to push paint. Thank you again Kami for your patience and sharing your passion for painting.

I'm excited to keep going with this approach and want to share some of my studies during the weekend. Some of the things I needed to change were, as Kami worded it, paint like your rich. So on goes the paint the colors in thick strokes just begging for a palette knife to cut into it. Even the method of mixing paints was new to me. She showed us how to whip it up without using any gamsol until it's consistency reminded me of butter.

I felt like a chef prepping my ingredients then wallah a recipe for success.

I still have a lot of work to do incorporating the new information in my brain so my hands and eyes see the tones and values. These studies are pretty rough, they don't have the finesse that will hopefully come later as I search for my style.