Week 5: Horsing around!

Great session this morning with really interesting ideas, not only horse projects(!). Really good progress in the group. See below...!

Anne: well what can I say! Well done for the development of your palette on the skin tones, brilliant and clever.  Keep  analysing the shapes within the skin and painting their edges so you don't lose the form. 

Janice: such wonderfully confident dark tonal values in your colours. Not easy to achieve. Continue developing the area around the faced then see how that helps you better understand the colours in the face.

John: great painting with really well developed combination of mediums (oil pastels and graphite).  Perhaps for your horse project you could combine oil and soft pastels? Just a thought. 

Karen: wonderful progress. There are so many learning opportunities in this painting that it is well worth continuing with it  for a few more weeks at least. Focus next on the tone values of the cheek and ear so you can create the right tonal relationships with the head scarf and shoulder. This will guide you with the lighter face tones.

Margaret: really interesting and lovely palette of greens and greys. Focus on the hills and the lake next to cover the white paper.  Then look at developing the colours further, for example in the greys think about blending in a mauve/light purple bias to complement the greens. 

Moira: really strong start with bold tones and colours.  Good to see the blue background is in - you can really see the other colours now. Continue blocking in the other colours on the horse before you start to blend them. 

Pat: a very good start. I like the technique on the ground colour, good density of colour, well blended with the second colour. Continue this technique and density of pastel on the other big shapes in the horse as per your drawing. We will look at the next level of blending in class. 

Val: great movement. I like the weight of the horse on the right as you look at it caused by him throwing his body weight that way. Keep the shapes on the horse distinct as now whilst you develop the colours and tones. But before you do any of that, make a decision on background and block the colours in over the white paper. Then develop all the colours.