Kim Shannon’s workshop, ‘Painting the kitchen table with colour and light’, was judged a wonderful success by our workshop participants. The workshop was held on 21 and 22 September 2019 at the Yass Valley Community Centre as part of the VASY weekend workshop series.

Over the two days Kim used her extensive knowledge as an artist and tutor to help us learn ways to create interesting and beautiful paintings from everyday domestic objects.

On the first day Kim took the group through a number of key steps in painting still life subjects including: (1) how to set up a still life design and the importance of having an idea, looking at different arrangements, angles and perspectives; (2) spending time making a number of pencil or charcoal sketches to test the design; and then (3) making three tonal sketches in ‘black and white’. The tonal sketches helped us work out how the painting may look when painted in a high key, low key or full tonal range. To help with this, Kim provided handouts that helped identify the ‘black and white’ tonal range and how to match those to the tones of various colours (hues).

After workshopping our way through the three basic steps on day one with our own still life set up, day two was about using the results to paint our individual masterpieces. By four o’clock on Sunday afternoon we were all happily exhausted and more than satisfied with what we had been able to accomplish. Some actually finished their painting on day two while the rest of us made great starts on works that we are looking forward to completing. Well done to all!! and a special thank you to Kim for her patience and individual attentiveness in sharing her skill and experience.

For more inspiration visit Kim’s website at www.kimshannon.com.au