Colley Whisson Workshop

10/14-16

The opportunity
While painting along Lake Burton last weekend (10/8) I happened to meet a fellow part time plein air advocate. His name is Dr. Munir Kapasi and I was delighted to spend a few hours painting and sharing stories and information. During the conversation, favorite artists came up and I mentioned Colley Whisson http://www.colleywhisson.com/ as an interesting painter from Australia. I saw a You Tube demo video along with a story about him on the blog Lines & Colors. To my amazement Munir said he was having a workshop at Binders in midtown the next weekend.
After our day painting, I got home and looked it up online finding out that— sure enough he was giving a two day and a three day workshop the next week. To shorten the story, after much consternation on the time and cost involved I decide that I was going so I registered Wednesday night for the three day workshop beginning Friday.

Getting it together
Thursday I ran out and spent some more money on the needed supplies—even with saving quite a bit by making my own mdf panels I would guess I had close to $650 invested including the $475 for the workshop. So I was determined to get some valuable information and make some contacts that might help me attain my goal of being a successful and professional painter—of that only time will tell. Friday morning I loaded up the car and headed down 400 to Buckhead and the Binder’s art supply store located on Piedmont. It only took me about 30 minutes. The store has a lot of great painting supplies and I was amazed at their selection of plein air equipment—pochades, bushes and supports. They appear to have quite a few classes going on all the time so I will check back often to see what’s happening.

Classroom begins
The class room is in the back of the store and a good size, with individual easels for everyone. They had to adjust them with an additional support so we could paint standing on the 16 x 11 panels that Colley requested we use. About thirteen people were in the class—all adults, no one under thirty. I would guess that the time and cost involved had lot to do with that. Colley Whisson is a good looking kid—44 I think, and looks younger. He wears running shorts and a golf shirt—that’s all I saw him in all week. He ‘s from the Brisbain area on the east cost. His father is a fairly famous modern painter and also a teacher. I think his grandfather and brother are artists too. His first job (and only one, I guess) was a framer for about a year. He was a bit of a boy wonder and has been a pro for over 20 years. His wife is from Italy—a place he visits often, they have two young boys. He’s very soft spoken and required a microphone to be heard. Enthusiasm is his greatest asset as a teacher. It was evident that he has had enough experience as a painter and as a teacher to get his points across but in my estimation this was not a beginners workshop. He brought with him several recent paintings and it was a delight to see them close up. The gestural application of lighter tones is fantastic and a key to his style. Most are landscape but he is also admired for his interiors. The landscape subject matter is of course Australia, with a lot of light filled country sides along with beach and urban scenes. He has traveled extensively so he does have work from Italy, the US West coast and even some views of Atlanta. I got the impression that he wanted to do local scenes for the areas that he has gallery representation. Here in Atlanta he shows in the Ann Irwin Gallery on Miami Circle in Buckhead.

Methods and madness
The method he uses is to demo a painting that he has done previously and then have the student do a version using his techniques. When in Rome do as the Romans is my motto when at a workshop, after all your paying the price to learn the key to his success and much of that has to do with technique. His pallet is extensive and as follows:
Titanium white
Ultramarine Blue
Alizarin Crimson
Yellow Ochre
Cadmium Yellow
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Medium Red
Pthalo Green
Cadmium Red Light
He was quite demonstrative about this pallet claiming that he could paint anything anywhere using it. Of that I don’t doubt. I had a lot of problem with the pthalo green—it’s like the plague. He also uses a a medium— Archival Oils (brand) Odourless Lean. Most of his supplies were resources from this company but I did not ask him if he was involved with them. This was a very important part of his technique. He claims that turpentine (especially the stuff you can buy now days) ruins the paint and robs it of it’s strength and it’s ultimate ability to dry without cracking. He uses this medium to clean his brush between colors by dipping just slightly in and wiping off the old paint with a cotton rag. I was washing my brushes in it until he noticed and showed me how to just dip the tip and wipe it down (this was a revelation for me—I suppose this is how it’s done with turpentine too!) All in all, the palette and the medium have had the most effect on my work since the workshop. He is famous for his quirky brush technique and uses a very large #13 or #14 bright brush —as they wear he shaves them down from the ferrule with a straight edge razor! He was experimenting with a Princeton Bordeaux #13 and by the end of the week was in love with it. I believe this is a synthetic mongoose. As part of the equipment list we were to buy three expensive bristle brushes —this I regret buying because I used only the largest and quickly switched back to my old synthetic flat, so buy one of those Princetons if you are going. With his shaved brushes he is able to get very delicate marks and lines that he uses later in his paintings for highlights and what I would call “noise”

First act
We all had seats in front of the easels and he was set up in front with his pochade (Alla Prima custom box—nice!) His first demo was a backlit view of Piedmont Park here in Atlanta with a brick wall and a pond. Working from a small photo of the original painting he dilutes his paint very thin for the work up, or rough in. Using large areas of the darkest shadow color as a base he works overall and in a half an hour or less had it roughed in. He used a lot of ultramarine blue and Alizarin for the darks. For these demos he did not use much drawing—just some guidelines or sometimes dots to measure the basic shapes with an emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines. (see videos) He also rubbed in some of the lights. Once the areas are in he lets the paint set up —the medium helping it dry quicker. At this point we started working on our versions from small photos he provided to each of us. I have been painting plein air for the last 6 months straight almost exclusively so I had no problem with the rough in. If anything, because I was finished rather quickly I spent most of my time fine tuning things —not a good thing. I had some issues, first working off a small photo of a painting and second using too much paint — not enough vehicle. Everything got a bit to dark and thick. So I wiped it down a few times and tried it again. The class took a few hours to get to the end of the first step and then we broke for lunch.


Second show
After lunch we all took our seats again for the show—and a show it is! He has great uplifting strokes with the flat brush. For this second stage the paint gets thicker and the values lighter. He’s excellent at suggesting foliage with out any heavy detail, His colors are close to pure with just a suggestion of compliments mixed it to soften them. He has no fear and the lighted areas and they go on in sumptuous single stokes of that big flat brush. With oh’s and ah’s the students were approving as he added final highlights of yellow tinted titanium and his signature noise smaller stokes that support direction and color of the forms. Some of this he does with a knife. Most of his darks are well detailed within the shadows giving extra body and interest to the work. All in all, it’s very entertaining to watch him paint—several times he garnered applause from the students as he finished.

Our Turn
After the premier event we all got back to work on our own versions. He walked around and assisted us one at a time. We followed the same routine for two additional days, the second day painting a Lagoona Beach scene and Sunday working on an interior. In the midst of this on Saturday he spent about 45 minutes doing a small still life demo and on Sunday we went outside in the parking lot where he did a small plein air demo (see video)

Notes and References
I’ll interdict some of his philosophy and methods taken as notes here from most important to least:
Light, dark, warm, cool, shape and retreat. Retreat meaning step back and look at each mark—2 to 3 yards.
Go warmer and exaggerate as needed.
More colors in the shadows.
Lighten up against the sky.
Grab paint from the edge.
Rub in lights on the underpainting.
He stresses drawing every chance you get and maintains it’s not an option if you serious
Paint a still life once a week (see demo)
Try working from a big digital photo frame if you are using photos.
Look for rectangles, triangles and circles.
Every surface is reflective.
50% mid tone, 20% darks, 30% lights.
Color is secondary.
Groupings, not individual marks.
Lay in darks and leave them. Shadow and mid tones, no highlights or very little.
Work healthy, avoid to much paint on your hands, wear protective clothing, mind you additives and chemicals. Look at everything you can and study the masters.


Overview
Overall, I can say that I had problems interpreting the photos. It was not like looking at the real scene or even the real painting. I asked him and he provided me with the photos he used to do the originals. This helped me a bit. Of note, he works almost exclusively from photos he takes himself. He’s a great plein air painter (see the demo) but most, if not all his gallery work is done in the studio from photos. He does a great job of simplifying and enhancing without losing the freshness that most of us do working this way. I was surprised—I’m kind of funny about this, but I tighten up in the studio, he certainly does not. I talked to him about this and he mentioned that he knew several artist with skin cancer problems so he had changed his routine to mostly studio work. I also believe he has so much experience outside that he has come up with a “language” that carries over to the studio work. Later in the week while driving around the countryside we stopped and took shots for paintings —but the interesting thing was his comments on one particular view—“Oh I’ve got it —that’s a painting”. Almost as if he was seeing the painting in his head before taking the photos. He gets a lot of help and support from his family. His wife handles his scheduling, he’s constantly meeting new people and he has work with him to sell if you wish to buy (yes please!) In short he’s a pro and acts like one. (except his clothes?) No hocus pocus here just hard work. One more thing—I met some wonderful artists, some of them professional who I will try to stay in contact with.

Added Value
I was fortunate to spend an extra day with Colley because he needed to do some things in town and he’s not comfortable driving in the US. So I picked him up Monday at home of one of the organizers of the event, Janet Suarez. He likes to stay in private homes—probably both for money reasons and for a true interest he has in meeting new people and getting a feeling for the area. We set out to Lake Oconee, about 50 miles east of Atlanta packing some of the paintings he had brought along. On the way out we talked about painters and he even gave me a list of his favorites (see below) It’s a nice area —mostly farmland which he enjoyed. In Oconee we stopped at a Dress the Walls a framer and gallery owned by Maria and David Siffert who he met in the two day workshop earlier in the week. He worked out a deal with David to ship them paintings to be framed— avoiding the cost of sending heavy frames and deliver them to the gallery in Atlanta. After some lunch we headed back to town stopping on the way out to get some reference photos (see above) Then we stopped at the famous Fox theater, taking a bunch of photos—I don’t think they were for a painting. After that we headed to the Ann Irwin Gallery, just missing Ann herself (darn!) Finally. I dropped him off at another acquaintances house. 2 days later he was in Nashville for his next workshop.

Some Favorite Artists
Whisson’s favorite/notable painter’s

Ausy artists

Old dudes
Harold Herbert
Authur Streeton (only one I know)
Tom Roberts
Fredrick McCubbin

New guys
Greg Allen
Peter Smales ?
Herman Pekel
Joseph Zbukvic
John Corby
Ross Paterson
Hal Bartoy
Robert Hagen
Alvaro Castagnet

others
Amanda Hyatt
Trevor Chamberlain
David Curtis - this guy rocks
Fred Cumming
Richard Schmid -one his favorite