SUNDAY WORKSHOP May 18th - Re-interpreting a well known painting.

It's been very common for artists to choose a well known work of art an re-interpret it in their own style. Picasso was a master at this. In this workshop I'm asking my students to choose a very well known work of art and re-interpret it in the medium of their choice. On the day I shall have several books with me which students may choose from if they haven't been able to find anything at home. The medium does not have to follow the same medium as the original work - it can be very interesting to interpret in a new medium.

Above you can see Paul Nash's The Menin Road and my half-life size copy, and also Rembrandt's 'Rembrandt and Saskia' plus a Picasso version alongside!

Worksheet, May 18th.

About six years ago I completed a commission for a client – he wanted a half-life-size copy of Paul Nash’s The Menin Road. It took me a few months as even at half size the painting was 6ft x 4ft, but it felt like one of the best painting lessons I’d ever had.

Paul Nash tends to paint with quite flat texture-less paint whereas I’m the opposite. I like paint with texture so one of the provisos to me agreeing to do the painting was to allow me to use my chosen technique. I discovered so many new things about the original painting through doing this commission.

In this workshop I’m going to get you to choose a very well-known painting and create your own version.

·        You can hold closely to the original image or you can disrupt the image.

·        You can choose your medium; you can mix your media.

·        You don’t need to use the same medium as the original painting.

·       You may want to make working-out sketches first, especially if you want to disrupt the original image.

Look at Rembrandt’s ‘Rembrandt and Saskia’ and beside it, Picasso’s ‘Parafrasis’. You can see that the elements are all present but that Picasso has re-interpreted the image.

It's good to experiment!!

The next workshop will be June 15th.