A Painting Workshop with Elio Camacho

A few weeks ago, my friends Carmen and Donna and I drove to Fernandina Beach, FL to attend a 4 day workshop with Elio Camacho.   Elio is one of my favorite painters and my very favorite instructor and I have been lucky enough to attend with workshops twice a year for the past three years.

 I started each day with this beautiful sunrise over the ocean, while eating breakfast at the hotel.

 This is one of Elio's 36x48" demos that he paints in just three hours!

Here Elio met a challenge to paint without darks.  He often states a painting should bring it's own light.  I think this one meets that requirement

 Another of his larger than life paintings.

This was a 25 minute demo he did for us on foam core.  He pushed the color even more than usual and got wild and crazy.

His brushwork is very exciting...something I am hoping to bring to my work.

Elio spent a year painting blue studies, then moved on and studied yellows and reds.  He likes to set up still life, to challenge his students, all in a single color.  He believes red is the most difficult color to paint.  If you can do a red painting, you can really see color.  This is a 20 minute demo he did for us one day.

We hated to leave the workshop after 3.5 intense and fun days.  To console ourselves, we had a final lunch of fried shrimp at our favorite eatery.

A final photo of Carmen and Donna, de-stressing with  ice cream in front of Island Art Association.  We thank the members for hosting us once again.  Then we hop into our car for the drive home.

One last classic Elio demo that he painted in about 15 minutes, out of his head.  I almost cried when he scrapped it off the next morning.

Needless to say, we are excited to return for his next Florida workshop in the spring.  You can find his workshop schedule here.

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Carol Schiff
www.CarolSchiffStudio.blogspot.com

Workshop Time

As you can see from my last post one of my main objectives at Elio's last workshop was to learn as much about color.  Interestingly enough the next painting I did was in black and white.  This was much harder than using colors.  I realized after watching his demo and listening to his comments as he painted that I really need to learn about value then color would follow.
Donna Vines

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Workshop Time

I am off to an Elio Comacho workshop and am so looking forward to it. I have not had much time to paint lately so this is just what I need. Here is one of the paintings from his last workshop. I can't wait to see what I bring home this time.
Donna Vines

Metal Looks

By know you all know how much I enjoyed Carol Nelson's workshop and what a fan of hers I am.  Not only do I admire her talent but her fearlessness.  She just goes for it.  She is not afraid to fail and go on to the next thing.  Most of the time we are too intimated to stray from all the set rules.  Play and take risks should be a sign in all our "play" spaces.
This is another technique Carol showed us.  I loved doing this one because it not only used found objects but made them look like they had been around for ages.
For this exercise use anything you have from your garage.  I used washers, paperclips, a button and  some old gutter screening.  I glued down the found objects with gel medium and the screening I used as a stencil and spread some gel on and let dry until it was hard.  Once the glue was set and the medium dry I covered it with heavy duty aluminum foil.  I glued the foil in the back with gel medium then burnished around the objects with my finger.  Once all the shapes were outlined I spread a mixture of watered down acrylic paints till I got the finish I wanted.  This look is very "Steam punk", which I love.
Donna Vines

Steam punk
 

Trees

After doing some more experiments from the Carol Nelson workshop I decided to put all of my paraphernalia away for awhile and go back to oils. As much as I enjoy all the techniques I have learned I feel I need a break from all the choices and just get back to basics for awhile.
The last thing I worked on, but have not quite finished, is a tree collage. I used some of the red resin paper treated with the rust activator and some collage papers I had. Originally I used the rust paper with the imprint to represent soil and some colorful collage papers as the foliage. As I was working on it I dropped it onto the floor and saw it from a different angle. It now looked like Fall, with all the colorful leaves on the ground and the dead foliage still on the trees. Hmmm, you decide.

Spring?

 



Fall?

Donna Vines