Painting with textures
The Painting with textures 2-day course will show you how to create real relief and visual textures with paint and drawing materials. This taster workshop (23.11.2014) offered a little glimpse of what students would learn on the full 2-day course.
What did the students think?
“Mind bending, mind expanding, mind blowing. Great demonstrations of unorthodox but very effective techniques that open all sorts of creative opportunities.”
“Fun and energetic, playful techniques, everyone got creative and explored the various techniques.”
The “workshop was great and packed with content – amazed how much we got done in 2 hours.”
This is a small glimpse into what the full 2-day course will be like. Something definitely to look forward to judging by the overwhelmingly positive comments I received.
The Experience
The art studio was very relaxed with everyone eager to get started experimenting and playing with all the materials and equipment on offer. Students were social, chatty and friendly. Everyone got on well and felt comfortable being creative together on this art course – taking risks and discovering new ideas through play. The Studio has a very creative vibe filled with creative energy from being in the middle of one of Manchester largest creative hubs with over 75 art studios and music rehearsal rooms. The whole Mill is a hub of creativity which I think adds to the fun and thrill of attending a Creative Art Course in Manchester.
Materials and techniques
The first technique I demonstrated was how to use wax candle to create stunning resist-based textures. Used correctly it can be used to create very professional, sophisticated and tactile textures. Laid down as a drawn texture on the primer or over a coloured base coat of acrylic paint results in stunning textures. The trick however is finding just how much water to mix with your acrylic paint as this will determine how the paint reacts with the wax. The type of paper you use is also crucial to the results. I was amazed at the results the students discovered. They all did themselves proud.
Every stage of the painting process needs to be thought about and unpicked to find ways of using it to make more textures. Everyone puts a base coat of emulsion or Gesso down before attacking the surface with acrylic paint. How many of you though, use this stage as a way of laying down textures that will appear later in the painting process? I demonstrated to the students how you can scrape textures into the emulsion/Gesso or even simply use a bristle brush to leave brush marks in the primer. Later, after applying your acrylic paint, you can use a scraper blade to scrape back the paint to reveal the textured emulsion/Gesso you applied right at the start. Simple. Brilliant results.
Taking notes is a good idea as one student demonstrates here. This is part of being a creative artist and I recommend this for all my courses and classes. Being creative means learning through play and experimentation and recording your findings. The ideas that get sparked off need to be recorded so they are not forgotten and squeezed out of your memory by the next great discovery.
On this taster workshop the students relished the opportunity to experiment with paint and texture to achieve loads of unexpected results.
There were some stunning textures created during this workshop. Students got thoroughly involved and time simply flew by.
A full 2-days learning about textures, materials and techniques will enable students to achieve some truly amazing results judging from what they achieved today in this short 2-hours Painting with textures taster workshop.
