Happy fall to everyone out there in the Do Art Nation. As Christmas approaches, we are excited to end the year with a bang here at Do Art Productions. We’ll be doing workshops, comic cons, and more, as we continue to plan an amazing 2025. We hope you’re coming along for the ride!
A few weeks ago I was lucky to head down to St Charles, MO, for a paint workshop. It was hosted in an old railroad depot at the Katy State Park, right on the Missouri River. I headed there on Saturday morning, as Jerry and his mom went to the Illinois Heartland Library System’s performers showcase.
Paint workshops have a different feel than workshops in comics or acting. Because it usually takes longer to create a finished painting than it does to execute a drawing, the performer’s role is less to put on a “show” than to supply the participants with what they need, get them started and bring an enthusiastic and supportive energy throughout. Because of the materials involved (paint, brushes, tablecloths to protect the tables and floor), the setup takes a bit longer. But the attendees, whether novice artists or professionals, are usually excited to get their hands dirty, and once color touches canvas you’re guaranteed to have an amazing time.
It was inspiring, as always, to see what creativity comes out of these workshops. Participants were invited to try out our “one-line-drawing” painting, but many of them chose to follow their own inspiration. Finished paintings included a dragon, a cat, a landscape, and an amazing portrait. I got to learn more about the British painter George Romney, and to share my enthusiasm for artists like Salvador Dali and Vincent van Gogh.
We also made a painting together. I started out with a basic mountain landscape (inspired by my recent trip to Colorado), and the attendees added their own creativity by adding sunshine, flowers in the foreground (from a skilled graphic designer, who showed me some of her artwork), and other touches of color that added to the depth and contour of the painting. I really enjoyed making art with this group–painting workshops allow everyone to work at their own pace, in a convivial environment that lends itself to conversation and collaboration. I found myself taking bits of inspiration from all of them, working them into the painting we made together.
Start painting, and you’ll soon find a little voice fills your head with suggestions. Add some more green here, use your brushstrokes to build a figure over there. This voice, by turns encouraging and mischievous, guides you through your painting, seeming to rise up in the gentle flow state that comes when you apply brush to canvas over and over again. You’ll realize that the painting needs blue, or purple. You pause, a bit scared to take its advice, but increasingly excited to do so. Then you seize on it–the suggestion does not always work, to be sure, but often as not if you keep with it you will see your painting come alive, and the stray suggestions that come to you will turn out to be just what the painting called for. As the participants left for the day, and I began to clean up, I thought back on all the ways that little “painting voice” helped me and them turn our blank canvases into something special and unique. As I write this, I’m off to another paint workshop in Geneva IL. I can’t wait to see what our painting voices suggest to us this time!