A beautiful spring like Saturday morning saw me enthusiastically driving south to the Sanctuary point Artist Cottage for an Artist workshop on Tonalism.
Sydney tonalist Maryanne Wick in her effervescent manner greeted myself and nine other eager participants ,giving us a hint at her enthusiastic teaching style and a glimpse of the positive tone the workshop would deliver.
Maryanne has lived, worked and painted in London, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong and is currently a lecturer in painting and drawing at the National Art School in Sydney. As a tonal artist, she is drawn ‘towards capturing light and shadow in her compositions and aims to convey ‘a sense of place’.’
The focus of our workshop was tonalism and in particular looking at the work of the artist Clarice Beckett.
[My aim is] to give a sincere and truthful representation of a portion of the beauty of Nature, and to show the charm of light and shade, which I try and set forth in correct tones so as to give nearly as possible an exact illusion of reality. Clarice Beckett 1924
Beginning with a good coffee , introductions were made at the enormous table spread with inspirational art books . Maryanne reiterated to us the obvious but often forgotten paradigm that it is never too late to tap into our creative side. ‘We each bring a lifetime of experiences, sensibilities and sense of place to our work and these things should be celebrated. Art is such a subjective subject’ and she encouraged us to work in our own way. The perfect teacher for this focus on tone.
We were reminded of the delicacy and subtlety of Clarice Beckett, looked at her work , discussed her life and listened to interviews discussing the discovery of much of her work in a barn years after her death.
To loosen us up and to get straight into painting we began a short tonal monochromatic painting in the style of tonalism. Discussion followed with a sumptuous morning tea.
Unbeknown to us Maryanne had set up back to back still life scenes and had them covered in the middle of the room. The unveiling revealed two contrasting arrangements and we were to paint which ever was in our direct line of vision. One with bright , vibrant gerbera in a vase on coloured cloth and the other in muted Australian colours of dried gum leaves and grevilleas. We spent the following two hours painting with Tonalism at the forefront of our minds but painting in our own style using tone to create form.
The wonderful thing about these workshops is sharing the experience with others and enjoying the vast differences in style, palettes, methods , scale and perspective painting from the same subject.
This is always the highlight of the day for me, when we all display our work and discuss the things that worked, the magic moments in a painting and learn from our own and other students journey through the process.
The end of the day meant a cleanup and a thoughtful drive home for more reading and brushing up on research. Tomorrow we paint plein air overlooking St Georges Basin.
Sunday morning I overslept and rushed out the door to another perfect day. Great ,we would be painting outside and it was going to be magnificent.
The usual coffee and a chat was followed by Maryanne’s recap on mixing the colours of our beautiful muted Australian landscape.
We looked at the art of Australian tonalists and Hammershoi , Wolfhagen, Morandi , Bischoff , Kevin Lincoln and Liz cummings and how these artists used tone. Needless to say we were impatient to begin painting. Shadows and light that changed by the minute presented a challenge but the views were spectacularly inspiring. We painted furiously to capture the changing light.
The end of the day crept up on us and we displayed our paintings.This is when you can look at your work as a group and feel very satisfied in the knowledge and skills learnt and many ideas and inspiration for further development of the paintings.
Thankyou Alison Mackay for accommodating our every workshop need and for your continued contribution in bringing the best of Australia’s contemporary artists to the south coast. A special thankyou to Maryanne Wick for sharing your wealth of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm.
Alison’s Art Workshops at Jervis Bay
Misty Moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915-1950
Between sea and sky: A portrait of Clarice Beckett