Dene Croft

. . . a three day workshop with Dene Croft exploring the methods
and master techniques employed in building  figure studies in oil and acrylic. . .
June 8-10, 2018

This workshop deals principally with composition, palette set-up and mixing life like flesh tones; the importance of under-paint ; full instruction and all-weekend demonstrations on building your painting- from the under paint to the finished piece  (. . . lots of hand holding – nobody gets left behind!) adding elements of abstraction and background design to create mood and ambiance.

 

While we will be focusing principally on anatomy and figure painting in this workshop, this is a weekend of general discussion on oil and acrylic painting and is open to all levels of ability (although some experience is definitely helpful). I will be open to discussing any- and all, of the techniques that I employ in my landscape, figure/portrait and still life paintings. . . . so bring your problems and issues . . .I am prepared to discuss whatever you bring to the workshop –   nothing is outside the scope of what we can cover.

We will be talking a little art history; a little about product; a lot about painterly technique, and we’ll be taking  a close look at master technique – grisaille, alla prima, sfumato and glazing, specifically- why I believe so strongly in using these techniques, and continue to use them in my own work.

We will discuss working with; and photographing models, lighting to create mood and ambiance,  building

ambient narratives, the importance of pre-studies;building tension in your composition and tapping into your

intuitive responses while working with ‘academic’ based technique.

While I prefer to work with live models, for practical reasons, we will be working from photographs for this workshop. You are very welcome to bring your own images and work from those; however I will be bringing multiple copies of the image that I will be working from for those that would prefer to follow along with my demos throughout the weekend.

 

 

Figure Explorations with Dene Croft . Materials List

  • Paint –Oil or Acrylics…. Please note – if you are an acrylic painter, ‘Open Acrylics will work better when painting flesh stuff. If you don’t have ‘Open Acrylics’ (slow drying) bring your retarder and a misting bottle.

These are the colours that I generally use to build my flesh palette
Cadmium Orange (hue)
Yellow Ochre
Burnt Umber
Indian Red
Cadmium Red
Black
White (Your favourite will do – I use Titanium
Also…
Ultramarine Blue
Alizarin Crimson
Sap Green
Quinacridone Red
Prussian or Phthalo Blue
Cadmium Yellow Deep

  • Brushes . . . whatever you have  – I generally use acrylic brushes ( even though I paint in oil) #6 filbert, #10 filbert, #0 round, 1/4 inch flat.
  • Several well gessoed canvases in a range of sizes no larger than 18×24 – 3 coats of gesso; sand the final layer.
  • Palette ( tear off, disposable is probably easiest for a w/s)
  • Oil/mediums, low odour mineral spirits or OMS.
  • Pencils, erasers, drawing paper.
  • Subject  (photo) material
  • Paper towels