This is an overdue follow up post about my Spain Painting Retreat with Sari Shryack that’s been sitting almost finished in the drafts for months. You can read more about the first days and our excursions to Cabo de Gata and later, The Alhambra in Grenada. This trip was in October and I’m excited announce I’ll be joining Sari again in 2025 for Camp Spark!

Day 5: Composition Types

The majority of day five was spent in Grenada at the Alhambra. Our tour was thorough, and though we intended to do some sketching on site, it was time to return to the bus at the end of our shared lunch.

Instead, on the bus we spoke of Edgar Payne’s types of composition, rules about composition, and when/why to break those rules thoughtfully. We were tasked with finding examples of each type, and this made me aware of how often I unthinkably subscribe to many of these in my day-to-day photography.

Day 6: Free Paint & Limited Color Pallet Study

Free Paint

Some of us were deeply committed to continuing our still life paintings and others were curious about working more en plein air. Sari welcomed all to take advantage of the cooler morning weather to work on our projects of choice.

I want to get more confident about painting en plein air here in my town, So outdoors I went. Again, I chose a complicated composition! I have so much to say–as made clear by my lengthy blog posts—and I struggle with editing in all frames of life.

I simplified, but looking back it would have benefitted me to:

1. paint only the plant in the corner, well
2. refreshed my paint water and my sta-wet palette, holy moly! My paintings got so dark because I was working with so much mud!

Limited Color Palette

In her demo, we watched on as Sari produced a traditional color wheel. She hinted at doing a CMYK limited palette: one with only Cyan (turquoise) Magenta, Yellow and BlacK…and loud ol’ me discouraged her. I had received a demo of this nature in my painting class with David Dunlop years ago. At the time, it really appealed to me: I have a minor in digital media that was printing press centric, and printers use this combination of CMYK. I did quite a few works with this palette, though the resulting works were generally quite elementary in those days.

She presented to us that it’s possible to paint a limited color palette of orange, green and purple. This stunned all of us, including the two art teachers in the group!

Her limited color palette was done with CMY + white.

I selected a composition that would allow me to replicate the lesson in a simple manner: a botanical.

Day 7: Free Paint, Personalized Instruction, Wrap Up & Gallery

I woke up early and had a little one-on-one time with my painting from the day prior before breakfast. I was pleased that I was able to complete this piece entirely, as pictured above.

We had more free paint time. I thought I’d try to do some timed attempts at cleaning up and completing my paintings from the days prior, but Sari encouraged me to start something new.

I did, and ended up with quite a collection of (almost complete) paintings.

Below are the collections from the other artists that were learning alongside me.

Takeaways

During the gallery, we shared the works we created throughout the retreat and discussed whether or not we achieved the goals we set out to accomplish during the retreat.

As I mentioned in my post prior to the trip, I set out to see things in a novel way and deepen my understanding of layers and values. I wanted to learn to paint more quickly (Definitely did that! –Yep!) and learn techniques.

Out of respect to Sari’s online art coursework available at a very reasonable rate, I haven’t included every single note or epiphany that I had throughout the retreat. But the competence I now feel as I approach an easel is through the roof. Reading back on my (now months old) notes, I declared in the moment head of the gallery that my takeaways were:

1. learned to loosen up brushstrokes
2. learned to layer
3. I’ll allow for some works to be studies–not all will be masterpieces. Write field notes on studies about what was being learned
4. acrylic is the way to go for “putting in the reps” for color mixing (loved all her athletic metaphors–really appeals to the gym rat in me) because of the lower cost.
5. I can crank out a complete acrylic painting in only a few hours
6. learned to find a reference point in the center of the composition to anchor my drawing when painting en plein air (so I don’t end up with the painting equivalent of a John Mulany birthday sign)
7. Start with most saturated or darkest value when building layers

What I didn’t include is how thrilling it was to be surrounded by other artists who think the way I do. People who stop to pause at small details in everyday life. Those who notice. We shared stories, book recommendations. It was thrilling to be around people that are intellectual yet humble, and creative through and through.

And Sari herself–it’s so cool to meet someone after admiring their work for so long, but there’s pressure there! Will they live up to your expectations? Are they cooler on the internet? (I always felt this way about myself when I was on social media). Sari’s not just a great painter and a great art teacher–she’s startlingly intelligent and thoughtful about a great breadth of subjects. Really so refreshing to be in conversation with her and those who are attracted to her and her work.

I can’t believe I get the privilege to be part of her alumni group! I know I’m going to be working on growing my art practice and business in ways I hadn’t before for the months leading up, and it will be great timing to level up with her coaching.