Joaquín Sorolla

Teacher Painting

"Home Time" 23 x 21" Oil on Canvas by Richard Robinson.

Teacher Painting

Resource photo

Resource photo with "Children on the Seashore" 96 cm x 1.3 m oil on canvas by Joachin Sorolla. 1903.

Teacher Painting

Resource

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida 1863-1923

Resource

Resource photo

My beautiful kids - Danielle and Luke on Ruakaka Beach.

Student Painting

Hi Chuck, some really nice work in this one. I'm loving the intensity of the oranges and blues in the beach but I think it's a shame you didn't push the colour in the dress further to match, although the dress does look good in itself. Similarly you've got some beautiful strong brushwork in the foreground but smudged it in the background and lost that energy. Your drawing is generally very good, but my daughter is not happy with the size of her butt in your painting, so I explained to her that it's not so much that you made her butt bigger, but that you made her head and right arm slightly smaller. You'll be happy to know that Luke doesn't have any complaints though. I find that if I paint a figure from a photo in the studio it really helps to print it out at the full size of the painting so that I can continually check the drawing in the painting against the print as I go. Helps a lot! Oh and drawing a grid over it really helps too.

Student Painting

Great work, Aurelia! Really interesting to see how you changed the colouring from the original photograph adding more vibrant colour into the skin shadows and also pushing the vibrancy in the water. Really very accurate drawing too which seems to be the hardest thing to get right, as ever. I love that vibrant orange halftone on the boy which just sings against the blues in the background. Fantastic! I would have liked to have seen a little more care taken in the water for a touch more interest there, but you've injected some great energy there with your brushwork anyway. Nice one!

Student Painting

A very well painted scene, Gail. Congratulations for all that work paying dividends like this. The drawing is very accurate as is your attention to detail in every respect. You didn't really manage to paint a Sorolla here, but it's uniquely your work and I'm glad to see that. If you were aiming for a looser more expressionistic style like Sorolla's then I'd recommend working over most of the scenery with larger brushes, big fat gobs of paint only partially mixed on the palette and dashed on with lyrical brushwork. The colouring my be more like this: (see next image).

Student Painting

"Alec at the Beach" Oil, canvas 16"x10" by Gail Richardson altered in Photoshop by teacher.

Student Painting

"This is a painting of my step-daughter and my grandkids. She had on a navy bathing suit but I changed it to white so that I could try all of the wonderful techniques Richard taught. Love this video, learned a lot and really need to learn more about mixing skin tones. Thanks so much Richard" - Sharon Repple Thanks Sharon, you're welcome! What a great painting you've managed in a 10x8"! Lovely design, colour, brushwork and figure drawing. My one and only reservation is the placement of the horizon above the top of the picture, which is giving the appearance of an imminent tsunami. I've done this too in the past and regretted it. Much better to obscure the horizon with weather or a bluish distant hillside. The horizon here would be close to her shoulder, judging by the positions of their feet. Other than the tsunami, great work!

Student Painting

Beautiful work, Diane! I'm drawn straight to her shoulder - wonderful colour work right there! You're really touching on Sorolla with the contrast in paint handling between the carefully considered skin tones and the expressive brushwork in the scenery. And you've found too that it's all very well dashing the paint on in the background, but the colour and placement has to be equally considered as do the skin tones, just painted with a different energy. Sorolla didn't always paint the skin so carefully - so we're just playing with one of his stylistic variations - plenty more to explore with Sorolla! As I'm sure you're aware by now if you've looked at your painting flipped in a mirror or on screen, some of the drawing in the painting is a little off, like his arms, and her hand, but that's relatively easy to mend compared with the work you've done to achieve this fine painting already. Good work!