Today is the final day and as all final days go - there are mixed emotions. We are all tired as taking workshops is hard work, but we are also sad that it is over as we would just like to keep him around to inspire us, to work us and to just encourage us to paint.
Graham paints in a very loose free style - not a lot of detail. This allows the viewer to feel that sense of peace and tranquility of being quiet. While he almost always puts horses and riders in his paintings, the lack of every minute detail means that the view is able to formulate their own details in the pictures.
Graham has taken us all back to the basics - taught us that putting paint to paper comes only after you think about the principles and elements of design. To think about the shapes of the things you are placing on the paper, how rhymically those shapes dance across the paper forming a pleasing dance that allows the eye to stop, rest and move on. To think about the harmony of the painting, how the sky relates to the earth, through shape, through color.
Making good art is more than putting color on paper, it is knowing what you want to say - just as a writer, through the use of words, paints a story in our minds, so to must the painter use their words - the paint - to make the viewer feel what you are wanting to convey.
It is our hope that after today, we will have the knowledge, the tools (paint and paper) and the will to make good art.
The rest is up to us - making good art is like training for a marathon - you don't decide one day to run a marathon the next weekend - it takes training - so to does painting.
We need to practice, put paint and water together and see what happens. Let paint and water determine where the painting is going. We need to not get discouraged when it doesn't work - but to pick ourselves up, lay out another sheet of paper and pick our brushes up again.
The following is by Ralph Marsden - from his daily motivational website http://www.greatday.com from which I reprint this essay.
Creativity is not reserved just for those who engage in artistic pursuits. In every life, in every situation, there are opportunities to be creative.
Being creative means acknowledging that there are many possibilities beyond the obvious. Being creative means having the courage to consider doing things in a way that's different than the way they've always been done.
Creativity gives you the ability to solve multiple problems with a single course of action. Creativity transforms weakness into strength, and builds value where there was none before.
Imagine the possibility of a connection between things that don't appear to be connected, and creativity will start to take hold. Look at life from a new perspective, and it will further nourish your creativity.
Creativity refuses to accept limits. And as such, with sufficient creativity you can move beyond any obstacle.
There is always room for improvement, and there is always a place for beauty, for achievement, for fulfillment. Be creative, and you'll continue to add richness to life.
-- Ralph Marston
So when the sun sets on this last day of a great painting workship - it doesn't have to be over. We take with us renewed enthusiam plus the encouragement of a great instructor who believes that we can all make great art. He has given us the knowledge and the techniques. The rest is up to us.
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