I’ve been putting off sharing about my eight day painting retreat in Spain! I arrived back in the U.S. on Monday night with a wealth of new knowledge, a breadth of experiences, one complete painting, two near complete paintings, six studies, pages upon pages of notes, and over a thousand new photos in my camera roll. Why have I been putting it off? Mostly, I’ve still been gliding on the motivating momentum toward my painting practice. When I’ve had a few spare moments, I haven’t known where to start, but I’ve learned that when you don’t know where to start, the best plan of action is to start anyway, one word at a time, and let the muses pull you along the path.

So here it goes…

Day 1: Meeting the Group

The first day included a late afternoon arrival, becoming acquainted with the accommodations, the host, and fellow students in the retreat. I was new to traveling alone-ish to meet up with a group of people to spend the next eight days with. Before I left, my teen asked if I was secretly going to be on a reality TV show, and I laughed it off.

Yet, funnily enough, the initial introduction portion was very reminiscent of a reality show. We slowly trickled in, introducing ourselves: friendly yet cautious–what would the next week hold in store for us? Our cast of characters was varied. Most were American from different states, but there was also a Singaporean, Bahamian-born Brit, and an ex-pat in Paris. We all felt different, with our art in common, and we’d be sharing a dwelling place and all meals for the next eight days. Our hosts guided us to our rooms, where we luxuriated in our private spaces. Very reality TV, if you ask me.

Day 2: The En Plein Air Rust Buster

Sari Shryack (rhymes with cherry bike–her moniker is @not_sorry_art because it is not pronounced as such) is a talented artist, a popular art content creator, and a seasoned online art teacher. She’s also a former collegiate athlete in cross country. For our first assignment, we were tasked with a “rust buster”-a term she learned in her running days. The rust buster is your first run back from a break. It won’t be your fastest, or your best, but it’ll get the gears going if you haven’t been active. Our painting would have the same low-stakes approach, as not each artist has a regular painting practice.

First, she familiarized us with her process for selecting, preparing and painting a work en plein air.

I won’t be sharing all of the valuable painting lessons I learned, or all my notes from her teachings, out of respect for her reasonably priced online art school and community, which I am a part of.

That being said, a simple trick she emphasized was to “measure out” with small marks on canvas where items are without doing any drawing, starting from a reference point in the middle of the composition. These small marks ensure everything would fit on canvas as intended. Next, she used a large brush to block out large blocks of major colors, then went in to draw lines for the first time, starting with the most saturated color first. She’d then color inside those lines, using a color throughout the composition before moving on to mix the next. If things got wonky, she’d go back and redraw her lines.

When I sought out a composition of my own, I set up shop in a “perfect” location. I loved everything about it! It had it all, told the whole story at once.

As Sari walked around during set up and asked us about our compositions, I shared with her that I often try to put too much in a single composition. She warned me that I was likely doing the same with this one, and left me pondering a simple question: “What do you like about this composition?”

Late in the game, I realized the “chaos” and “too much” were what I liked about it and singling out an item couldn’t do it for me the same way. So I moved. Then I measured, drew lines, blocked, colored in again and again with a big brush…

Did you notice I didn’t go in the right order I mentioned earlier? I didn’t.

Once I redrew my lines, things started going more smoothly.

We were rust busting, remember?

A couple hours later, I had an almost done en plein air painting, to my liking. here it is alongside the others.

Day 3: Value Studies & Cabo de Gata

In the morning on the third day, Sari showed us how to do a study with three values: white, gray, and black. I quickly found that it is a challenge to summarize an image in such a way.

She also demonstrated a notan study, that which is only two values: black and white.

Cabo de Gata

The second half of the day we were off to a guided tour of Cabo de Gata. Our tour guide was passionate with a wealth of knowledge, so that receives a post of its own: Almeria: The Vegetable Garden of Europe and Home to the Spaghetti Western.

Day 4: Still Life

Still Life is Sari’s bread and butter. I love a modern take on tradition. While the still life paintings of yore were dark and gloomy renditions of fruitful feasts, Sari’s hyper color takes on the artform often reveal nostalgia for a bubble-yum infused youth in y2k in her teenage still life series. She’s recently published a book on still life!

For our still life day, we started with conceiving a composition alongside her. We gathered many items and she asked which of those we’d like to see painted. She explained that items are gathered by color, by theme, or to potentially tell a story. Based on only a couple of items selected: a juicer, a bag of chips, a couple of balloons, a bottle of wine, a croissant. I quickly saw a theme.

“Sorry to interrupt–I’m a storyteller at heart. I see a concept already!”

“What is it?”

“The morning after a party.”

They went for it, and we continued to build the composition and the story around it. We opened the chip bag, exchanged the wine bottle for a beer can and an almost-empty glass of beer. Cut the croissant, made juice from an orange, added a tea cup.

Sari said: “I feel like this needs lipstick on the glass”

I always start my day with lipstick.

She then demonstrated how she would go about painting the subject. The resulting work was named, “La Resaca”–the hangover in Spanish.

During the second half of the day, we grabbed many items from our rooms and gathered in groups to practice making still life compositions with the varied objects we brought to the communal table. We’d then switch groups and change the composition from the previous group to better suit our message, style, or preferences.

Group Still Life Compositions

Personal Still Life

Later in the afternoon, it was our turn to give it a whirl. I almost overdid another composition–Sari came in and reminded me of my confessed compulsion, and I remembered her message from that first painting: “What do you like about this composition?” so I narrowed it down.

Though it remains a work in progress, my balloons kept moving, and the lighting/angle of this photo is questionable, I’m really proud of the painting I was able to accomplish in three short hours!

to be continued…

This post calls for a couple of follow ups!