Dan Schultz workshop

Just took a 3 day Dan Schultz workshop where we covered portrait work as well as painting the figure in the landscape. I find the longer I paint, the less workshops are about learning something new, and the more they are about either being reminded of things I have forgotten to focus on lately, or hearing something in a new way that helps crystalize it.

Those things for me at this workshop were:

• Placing an intermediate color/ value between shapes is a great way to soften edges
• When drawing, measure, measure, measure!
• When blocking in, CONTINUALLY squint and compare to get the values down accurately
• While it's important to compare a value to the one beside it, it's even more important to compare it to the lightest and darkest values in the entire subject. Here is an example:

In this photo of Maya, it's easy to see that if you were trying to assess the value of her face only against her hair or the background, it would appear very light, but if you compare it to her hat or scarf you can see it's at least a couple of values darker than they are, and you must leave room for those lighter values.

Workshops also help shine a light on the bad habits we can develop when working unmonitored in our studios. During this one I realized that in my impatience to get to the painting stage I will often move on to it before I have achieved a totally accurate drawing. Bad.

I also find that when a painting's not going well, I have a tendency to do something bold and dramatic to try and fix things. Dan is a very careful, subtle painter, and watching him was a valuable reminder that sometimes what is required is the patience and discipline to slow down and make some very small, focused, intricate adjustments. At times this calls for painstaking attention, but it is amazing how it can make all the difference in pulling a painting together in the later stages.

Dan's demo of Marsha. This is unfinished, but it gives you a good idea of how well he simplifies busy, complex subject matter into a few well placed, varied strokes to suggest what's there.

Photo of Marsha modeling (NOTE: Photos posted here are copyrighted. Please respect this as well as the models - they were paid to model specifically for us.)

Dan is humble and sweet, a passionate painter and a thorough and engaged instructor. I highly recommend taking a workshop with him if you have a chance.