Stretch your creativity, move out of your comfort zone. Push past what you see, to what you feel, and to what you would like to express through your painting. Capture color, light and the essence of a place through impressionistic acrylic painting. Learn how to make value and negative patterns work for you. Create paintings that have strength and depth, while simplifying your composition to make your work stronger. Sharon will show you how to tell your story through bold brush strokes, and “unexpected” colour.

Canvas/board prep, composition, and underpainting approaches shared. Colour mixing with a touch of theory to set the mood. Explore working with mediums, and transparent colours to make your work glow. In studio class, with a couple of days painting outside en plein air, weather permitting.

Students Should Bring: The following supply list is only my (Sharon’s) recommendation and not by any means is it mandatory. Any good art store in your area should have available just about everything on this list. 

• Supports: Stretched canvas panels or birch panels. If you are using birch panels you will need Golden’s GAC 100 medium to seal the boards prior to putting gesso on them. Please make sure to paint a layer of white gesso on the canvas you will be using for the first class prior to coming. For this workshop, bring smaller canvases, nothing larger than 16”x20”. I like to work with 9”x12” to 12”x12” during the workshop.
• Brushes: It is useful to have both some soft watercolour type and stiffer acrylic type brushes. I generally use a 1-inch flat acrylic brush, and a ½” bristle brush for most of my laying in of colour. For painting with liquid acrylics, I use a softer round #10 or #12 watercolour brush.
• Pigment Choices: You do not need 20 or 30 tubes of paint. A basic palette of colours plus black and white will give you a huge range of colour and value. Get artist quality paint if you can afford it, I generally use Golden High Flow liquid acrylics or Golden heavy body paint. Suggested palette: Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, and Carbon Black, Cadmium Orange. Feel free to bring other paint colours too, if you have them.
• Mediums: If you are using Heavy body paint – Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid – used for thinning paint and glazing. Golden Molding Paste for texturing the canvas. White Gesso.
• Other Stuff: Plastic for under your easel and your tabletop, water bucket, paper towels, palette or “stay wet palette” and a painting knife, blow dryer. Drawing pencil, black marker or pen, sketchbook/notebook, tape. (Easels are available at the school, but if you have a portable easel for plein air that would be great.)
• Photos: Please bring a number of photos with you that you have taken yourself. I will be supplying a number of photos to choose from for your exercises as well if needed.

Bookings

Sharon Fox Cranston

Sharon Fox Cranston is a visual artist based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is multi-disciplined and works in oil, acrylic and pastel. Sharon is a Signature member of the Society of Canadian Artists, the Pastel Society of America, and a designated Master Pastelist of Pastel Artists Canada. She has been creating fine art professionally for over 20 years.

Her impressionistic style actively challenges the viewer to interpret the work for themselves. Sharon’s focus is on the texture, colour and rhythms of the rural landscape.

“Creating art brings me joy, it gives my visual perception of the world a voice. I enjoy challenging myself to grow, to experiment, to explore new ways of looking at the world. Each one of my paintings is a visual record of where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, and how I’ve tried to express that moment to others.”

Bookings

Registrations for this workshop are now closed.