Straight to Masses: A Painterly Manner (Workshop H)

Instructor: Eduardo Bajzek (São Paulo, Brasil)
Location: Pintor Fortuny amb Xuclà

What does Painterly mean?

Painterly is basically a style of painting where the focus is on the masses of things, rather than on its edges. In opposition to Linear, which represents things as they are, tactile and tangible, Painterly represents what appears to be. By definition Painterly is: “a style of painting marked by openness of form, with shapes distinguished by variations of color rather than by outline or contour.”

What is this workshop about?

With the experience I had in Santo Domingo, I developed the workshop Straight to Colors, improving its ideas and exploring different techniques.

This workshop is about a solid concept, which is working with masses, one of the basic ideas behind the Painterly Style. Participants will be invited to skip the line drawing phase, searching for big shapes on their subjects. Gradually adding layers, participants will work the values from light to dark.

These are the main steps of this process:

• Try to catch the whole subject at once;
• Try to put everything in place using only masses, including building the perspective if it’s necessary.
• Work with a narrow range of values and reducing the masses progressively, until they resemble details.
• Suggest details, instead of describe them.

What techniques are we using in this workshop?

The concept of working with masses can be applied in any technique. However, some are more efficient than others. Like in Santo Domingo, participants will be invited to try art markers. In addition, they may use pencil or watercolor. They can also switch between techniques during the workshop.

• Pencil: The easiest technique, as you can avoid being distracted by colors and focus more on masses. It is more flexible than the others techniques, as you can go back if you make some mistake.
• Art markers: They are very useful when applied as masses. The application of art markers technique will be presented throughout a simple demonstration followed by individual comments.
• Watercolors: Can also be applied in a painterly manner, when we look for bi-dimensional shapes and suggesting details.

What about our drawing’s subjects?

Some picturesque subjects are perfectly suitable for a painterly treatment, such as run-down houses or a decaying environment. However, we can apply this concept in any kind of subjects, like people, animals, gardens, landscapes, a market, a waterfall, and so on. It is a matter of changing the focus and explores what is inside the edges.

How is the workshop going to work?

The workshop will be divided as follows:

I – PRESENTATION (15’)

The goals of the workshop will be presented visually - my own drawings and the work of other artists will serve as references.

II – PRACTICE (2h30’)

1º Part (1:00'): Quick and small sketches using a few shades of grey. In these exercises participants will build in layers from light to dark, in a narrow value range;
Example of subjects: trees, statues, parts of a building.

2º Part (1:30'): Careful, complex drawings, focusing on massing the shapes. At this point participants may apply the concept in a more relevant subject, and with colors if wanted.
Example of subjects: buildings, parts of urban landscape.

III – APPRAISAL (15’)

Individual comments are going to be made during the entire workshop. Even so, drawings will be placed side by side for evaluation. Participants will also be invited to share their thoughts about what they have experienced.

Participants will receive a brochure which will include the workshop’s main ideas and examples, for later reference.

What are we going to learn by the end of the workshop?

The main goal of this workshop is introducing the concept of massing, which is the main idea behind the Painterly Style, as mentioned before. This is a powerful tool to broaden our artistic repertoire.
Besides that, different aspects like using negative spaces of forms, perspective, and so on, can appear during the drawing process.

What media should we bring?

Pencil: participants should bring their own, from 2B to 8B;
Art markers: Although we will try to find a sponsor to provide art markers, you may want to bring your own set.
Watercolor: Participants should bring their own.