I really enjoyed coaching a group of 14 wonderful digital artists, at my first Digital Painting workshop in Athens!
Throughout the workshop, I shared many digital painting tips and talked about colour and tones. Plus, I showed colour thumbnails and how I drew some of my portraits and caricatures.
A 2-day no nonsense workshop
Each day I did a live demonstration drawing a portrait to present my technique:
A colour portrait on Saturday, using a limited palette. I started from a mid-tone colour, then added values and blocked in shapes.
Sunday is the perfect day to draw a black & white portrait.
I love mid-tones. Everyone should love mid-tones! Evolving a mid-tone is the best way to spend a Sunday! Watching the tone grow and grow and grow until it conquers the whole canvas. AND -WHY NOT- THE WHOLE WORLD!
OK, back to me, please!
One of the questions I had to answer was “Why should we start drawing the colour portrait and not the BW portrait on the first day ?”.
There are two main reasons for that:
First of all, who said Black & White portraits are easier to draw? When it comes to Tones, even a Master should be scared!
Secondly, on the first day of the workshop, every participant is full of energy. So it’s wiser to put the hard exercises first. If you wanna learn to swim, jump into the waters!
And that was what every artist did. All these Digital Painters, they are savages!
At the end of the workshop on Sunday afternoon, each one of them had finished at least 2 great portraits, some of them made even more! Yep, true story.
A great venue for a great workshop
The workshop took place at the Benaki Museum. I am thrilled that this great Greek Museum -and one of my personal favourites- became our home for 2 days.
Many thanks to Liana and all the staff who helped us make it happen.
A word for the sponsors
A big Thank You to Huion and Huion Greece for supporting the workshop and providing the awesome GT-191 digitizer. It’s the updated model of the one I use, so it felt natural working with it throughout the workshop. Remember: great gear makes work easier. And that is the first step towards great artwork!
Thank you Huion!
Big thanks to +Design and
See you all at the next one!
Finally, I would love to thank all the participants.
You are great and are on the right path to become digital painters!
Just don’t forget to do your exercises!
NAO back to drawing board!
