I have never done an art society demo before this one…. at Leatherhead Art Club. The brief was to scale up a small plein air and describe my process. I was really anxious before as I didn’t know if I could speak and paint at the same time! It’s public speaking for an artist because you have to paint, talk about what you’re doing and being filmed and projected at the same time! It turns out I can do it, so relieved! I even enjoyed it once I got over my nerves. I told the 30+ group it was my first time and they were really warm and encouraging.
There was surprisingly little time to actually paint probably 80mins, on a big painting that isn’t long! My Landscape Artist of The year training helped, with the pressure and producing a painting in a short time. I also thought if I can do the telly I can do this art Society demo!
Back in the studio I added thicker paint and worked on the shapes of the gondola and buildings. I remixed all the colours from the painting so I could dip in and mix what I needed without scrimping on amounts.
During the demo I mainly used my painting as the subject without really looking at a photo. In the studio I used both, as scaling up a painting sometimes you need more information than what’s in the smaller plein air.
Here is the plein air 10×12″ and the demo 15×18″
To sum up it was a positive experience and I will be doing more!!