Alla Prima Painting with Deborah Tilby

I was so fortunate to get to go to a 2 day workshop this past Mother's Day weekend in North Vancouver with the wonderful Deborah Tilby. While I was unable to complete either painting, I got a TON of work done. Alla prima painting is so much faster than indirect painting. It definitely gets the adrenaline running as you know at the workshops, just like when plein air painting, you only have so much time to get things done!

The landscape painting was done on the first day and really all I think it needed is to push the dark and light values further. I always struggle with this and seem to have to keep pushing as I go to get the full value range. I also think the barn could use a bit of fixing up, maybe a window or two?

The seascape was done on the second day, I was SO sick :( I spent the morning painting and actually considered packing up and going home after an hour. I felt so ill...hot...cold....dizzy...nausea....Happy Mother's Day to me! I mixed paint strings for areas that did not exist, painted areas totally wrong and then said to heck with it, have some lunch and take a break and hopefully things will improve.

Luckily after lunch I did feel somewhat better and painted over most of what I had done in the morning so really, this painting was done super quick! Again, it is not finished and would have like to push the values more and add more depth to the sand and waves, maybe loosen up the foreground bushes a bit. This is why working from life and workshops are good, they force you to just stop and move on as honestly I think I could work on my paintings forever ;)

Other than being sick though, had a great time and I am so looking forward to plein air painting and more landscape paintings over the summer!

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Tracey Costescu Fine Art

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