RESUMÉ of MONOCHROME WORKSHOP

Well attended, this monochrome workshop lead by Fiona Nichols was a success and most of the 17 participants felt they had learned something new.

 

   

Fiona started us looking at some well known paintings on an iPad, works in which tone played a major role and how artists through the years have astutely used contrasting tone to create interesting works. Think Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titian.

  

The old adage of DARK against LIGHT, and LIGHT against DARK were more than evident and she pointed out that with masterly use of tonal values, plus good composition, an artist is well on the way to a successful painting.

Interestingly, a good tonal painting - such as a sanguine work - stands as a work of art on its own, without the need for a full range of colour.


We made a tonal chart dividing our chosen medium - mostly pencil, some watercolour and some charcoals - into FIVE tones.

This was the basis for the work we did. The darkest of the tones were to be black and the lightest, the colour of our paper.

There were two still life set ups and we had a chance at doing both. See a photo below.

   

She also showed how to convert a photo on a smartphone or tablet directly into grey scale, which makes working in monochrome so much easier.

   

So why not take up the challenge, and make another sketch in monochrome?