A Rewarding Painting Workshop Taught by Roger Bansemer

This past weekend, I attended a two-day landscape painting workshop in historic St. Augustine, Florida, taught by the noted painter, Roger Bansemer. The paintings in this post are by Roger, one done as a demonstration each of the two days. (By the way, I am trying to set up this post on the new blogger format and having trouble setting up the post the way I want to. I'm not sure how it will turn out--sorry if it's a little strange.) 


Bansemer's instructional painting television program has recently begun showing on our public tv station, and I took a look at his website after viewing an episode. Lo and behold, he offered a painting workshop over Mother's Day weekend only about a 45 minute drive from our home. I liked his painting style and his easy-going, yet very informative, manner on the television program, so enrolled in the workshop, hoping he would be a compatible teacher for me.

The workshop exceeded my expectations. As regular readers know, I tend to paint slowly and cautiously and to get overly fussy with detail in a detrimental way. Roger Bansemer was the perfect teacher to push me to a bolder, more "painterly" approach and to quash the fussiness right from the start.


Each workshop morning began with a lovely breakfast buffet, provided by the staff and volunteers of the St. Augustine Art Association, where the workshop met. Then Roger began the demonstration painting of the day, based on a photograph. He used acrylic paints, as I do, but welcomed students who were working in oils as well. His instruction covered all aspects of landscape painting, beginning with choosing a scene, then establishing the overall composition, balancing values (lights, darks, and in-between values), using a limited palette of colors, and other basics. As he spoke, he illustrated the method in his demonstration painting and kindly tolerated and answered our wide-ranging questions. 


My photos show each of his two demo paintings in an early stage and then at the end of the day after he had gone beyond the initial demo stage, using his lunch period and other free moments during the day to flesh out the piece. To begin, he rubbed a burnt sienna tone into the board as a mid-tone base. Then, he established the major dark areas, some of the lightest lights, and continued to fill in, working all around the piece in a balanced way. Clicking on any photo will enable you to see it enlarged.


After showing us the basics and answering questions, he turned us loose to work on our own chosen paintings and circulated from one student to the next, guiding each person's work. The workshop was very helpful to me, providing new skills, inspiration, and tips focused on my individual needs as an artist.

Question of the day: Isn't learning and stretching ourselves one of the most enlivening activities we can pursue?

Techniques for Painting Shadows in Landscapes

Today, let's consider shadows in landscape paintings once more, this time considering a few "how-to" techniques. (Scroll down a bit for earlier posts on this topic.) Of course, since painting is very individual and variable, I realize that my techniques and methods are only one way to approach this important element in a scene. I would love to hear from other artists who approach shadow painting differently--as well as from readers who might "see" them differently. I think shadows are fascinating to consider.

"Wooded Path" is adapted from some photos I took on the extensive grounds of the Kingsley Plantation, which I have written about in several earlier posts. This historic site is nestled in an immense preserve area just north of Jacksonville, Florida. The Timucuan preserve includes salt marshes, wooded areas, and Florida prairie, as well as other land and water habitats. The 16" x 20" acrylic painting on gallery-wrap canvas shows a bend in a path as it leads deeper into the woods. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a good, true photo of this piece (don't know why that happens sometimes). The photo of the final version, seen below an earlier view and a detail of the foreground, looks misty in the mid-ground, whereas the actual painting is clear. The work-in-progress took a better photo--hope you can see some value in the improvements in the final version in spite of the poor photo.

At first, the path was too uniformly dark and mid-dark in tone, so in the work-in-progress photo above, you see that I have lightened whole areas, especially just before the bend. Then I added some shadow areas gradually, being careful not to overdo either the amount of shadow area on the path or the darkness of the tones.

Linda Blondheim, in one of her excellent workshops, helped me see that the foreground shadow of the tree trunk was too dark as it moved away from the tree. Real life shadows tend to be darkest at their "source" (right next to the object casting the shadow) and then partially fade along the length of the shadow. Actually, I knew that, but had not been successful in my attempts to vary the shadow. It never looked right. Linda advised that I pull in other path tones and colors from the sides of the shadow edge as it moved away from the tree. To my eye, that worked like a charm, much better than my earlier tries at just gradually lightening the color I used for the shadow as it extended out.

One other change, made before Linda's workshop, was to revise the curve of the path in the foreground. Although not related to shadows, I thought you might like to see that revision, too. In the earlier version, it seemed like the perspective was off, like the path sort of spilled into the viewer's lap. The detail photo shows my sketched lines for revision, which led to an improvement in the composition, I think .

Question of the day: Do you look at shadows differently after hearing about the challenges involved in painting them?