Skip Lawrence Workshop: Evaluation? Great!

The Happy Crowd -- Skip Lawrence's Painting Class, Spring Maid Beach March 2011

Dan and I returned from our trip to Spring Maid Beach and my workshop with Skip Lawrence last Wednesday. What a great week. It was full of painting and learning and lots of laughter. The workshop was not a "how to" but more of  a "why paint" and "then get to painting" workshop. The workshop did not have a regular description printed or posted anywhere and this disturbed some of the participants. We all like predictability and this workshop turned out to be unpredictable.

When asked what we would be doing in the workshop, Skip said "This is a PAINTING WORKSHOP." We will work on finding our own voice. Yikes! I said, I have nothing interesting to say. I am such a mellow person, no drama in me! How can I find something interesting to say? While I am still working on the interesting bit but I did have fun painting the way I wanted to and did not have to learn another artist's technique or tricks of the trade. Read Skip's last blog entry  and you will get a good idea of what he told us through the week. There was lots of good advice from Skip for each of the participants every day and lots of laughter too.

Skip and Margie at the final show on Friday night.

As Skip writes, "Proceed from a place of no fear.  Take every chance, listen to your intuitive voice, prepare for marvelous disasters, and do not evaluate success with the same old rules"

My first painting of the week. Inspired by the sunrise we saw from our balcony. Painted from my place of no fear. What a great way to start a wonderful week.

So I did as Skip suggested and worked through the week in totally new ways. My week was not without trials and errors but I think I had some success by the end of the week. As I walked around the room of 20 some artists working away at their art. I heard much the same thing, "This is hard! Working toward our own vision in our paintings. Skip kept at us -- prodded, and coached and encouraged us in our work. He could see just what our paintings needed. I recommend one of Skip's workshop to anyone.

One of our assignments for the week was to add a piece of nature to our paintings. Some of us really went out and made beautiful collages with natural elements. I added on single seed pod to this painting of a waterfall. It was a bit of nature that might have floated down the water way. Unfortunately it was very fragile. It did not survive the trip home.

 I have more paintings to show you tomorrow.