Painting Workshop

In every issue of International Artist we will feature a Painting Workshop from one of New Zealand’s best artists.

In every issue of International

Artist we will feature a Painting Workshop from Richard Robinson, one of New Zealand’s best artists.

Transfigure, verb 1. to change in outward form or appearance; transform. 2. to change so as to glorify or exalt.

Taking elements from the landscape and arranging them into a pleasing composition is one of the benefits of being a plein air painter as opposed to a photographer. When you first begin painting outdoors it’s all you can do to just attempt to paint what you are seeing. The next step, once you get more comfortable, is to gradually become the master of your painting instead of being enslaved by the scene. At that point, you begin to transfigure the landscape into something glorious in paint, something that exalts the landscape and brings attention to its most beautiful moments. Begin by making small changes at first because the more you have to invent, the harder it is to achieve a convincing realism as you’ll be relying purely on your memory and imagination— a mere ghost of the real world. When it comes to inventing things in your scene, whether it’s a figure, a tree, a cloud, lighting or an atmospheric effect, the more you understand why a thing looks like it does, the better able you’ll be to conjure it onto your canvas with your brushy wand. That’s why artists are always working. Whether we’re staring at a high cloud or a face at a party we’re always trying to figure out how the light is working to reveal its beauty so wonderfully.