Aloa Jungle visitors,
these days are pretty busy. The Artbook is printed, travels to painting events are organised, projects are finished or get prepared ... like the usual Massive Voodoo Madness, BUT there was one event that really felt like a homerun. Last weekend we had our first painting class close to our studio, in Augsburg (our hometown), Germany.
The room was in the same house and even on the same floor as our studio is and so preparing was a walk in the park. The classroom size was limited to a smaller group of pupils, so it has been a relaxed weekend with much to learn, but let me tell you from the early start ...
The pupils arrived for the first session of the class on Friday night.
Thanks to everybody who took part in the class. Thanks to those who traveled far, thanks to those who lived close and thanks to those who did the class for a second time.
Again I want to say sorry for the issue we had on Friday. I put on the heating in the room on Friday aroudn 2 pm and somehow this was way too late for the evening. It was cold here down in Bavaria and Friday made me really feel bad. Luckily Saturday and Sunday we had it more comfortable. The room looks a bit rough, but it is said by the house owners that there will be a true workshop room there in the future. It is all about money that they don't have yet, but maybe with two classes there and my rent they have something to start. I did like the athmosphere of the room, except the cold on Friday night.
The regular program of preparing the figures, building a harmonic base to the figures and a lot of theory was guiding us through Friday night. Everyone was happy that it was over late at night due the freezing temperatures. There have been some students doing the class for the second time and they did not have to paint a GW's demonette. They brought their own projects and were helped with questions about them, suggestions during the way of progress and ideas. Some impressions of Friday night:
Saturday morning brought everyone back to the place and luckily the room felt a bit warmer than last night. It was time for some more theory and different preparation works on the base, figure and some special effects in front of the priming that awaited us during high noon. We had a walk to have some meal after priming and readied up for painting after our return.
In small demonstrations we brought together the theory of Friday night with some practical exercise and everyone started enjoying painting on his base first. This step is really important to get a non-fearful approach to new painting techniques I explained. It is a sketch. A sketch is not the final product. Don't you fear painting at all ... just paint!
After we saw the rough sketch and plan our base was improved with, we started the same procedure on smaller areas at the figures. This gets a bit tricky while painting shadows as you don't get rewarded pretty fast and so the usual Saturday night frustration arrived. It was calmed with steps later on, whilst painting highlights to the figure that made our light sketch more visible. After all armour parts were prepared for the next day and some small presentations in theory again it was time to say goodnight again ...
Sunday morning arrived quick and we started with some special area parts on the figure. Maximizing contrasts here and there, painting leather, painting the faces to finish and painting metallics. The figures grew from a sketch to a picture. Now it was time to bring in more details to this picture with special effects, clean up here and there, detail lights in the upper torso area and well ... a lot of painting in the end.
Time went by pretty fast like on every Sunday at a Painting class but it was a real joy for me as a teacher to see the individual improvements of my students. You really did well for some 10 excessive hours of painting. As said never stop to learn, experiment and try new things. Your own experience is what matters, not the experience of others. Paint!
Sadly we were not able to take photos of every figure as some students of the class had to leave earlier on Sunday as they had to travel a far distance, but we made some ...
As mentioned earlier I was really happy to see your figures grow. I remember when one student told me in front of the class that he already has a plan how to paint his demon lady. He showed me a colour scheme in some Games Workshop books and I told him he shall wait for this decision until the theory parts are done. They might change his plan massively and so they did. He ended up with an underwater scene with glowing fishes around his demon lady. That is what I am trying to teach, open your eyes, be inspired by everything around you and feel it.
If you feel it, you can paint it.
Thanks for the great weekend!
I am off to the next class in Augsburg this weekend!
Read you soon!
Roman
PS: Thanks for the coffee donations!
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