Kenn Backhaus workshop

In late June I participated in a 3 day plein air painting workshop in Rochester with Kenn Backhaus. First I'll say to any artists reading this - Kenn is a fantastic instructor. I'd heard this from others but can now say it from experience. His demos were excellent and instructive, his "at easel" suggestions helpful, and his final critiques were insightful. Overall it was an excellent experience. If anyone has any more detailed questions about the workshop, let me know and I'll do my best to answer.

These are a couple of study pieces I painted during the workshop. The first, an 8x10 oil from day 2, was inspired by Kenn's demo and completed in about an hour. I did learn some things about painting clouds and am looking forward to employing them in the future. The cloud shadows on the water and distant headlands were a very exciting aspect of this day/scene. The second study, an 8x6 oil, is from day 3 and was also completed in about an hour. The eyecatching aspect of this scene was the bright white tent canopy and the strong violet shadow on it. I followed Kenn's approach for this one (see below) and even though it's somewhat rough and unfinished, I feel it is successful as a study.

Day 1: We met at an estate south of Rochester with open farmland, interesting buildings, a pond, statues...Kenn lectured for a while, discussing the importance of design and contrast in paintings. He discussed his palette (titanium white, cad lemon, cad yellow, permanent rose, permanent alizarin, raw sienna, ultramarine blue, ivory black) and demonstrated color mixing. He also showed some of his previously completed studies to reinforce some of the ideas presented. He then discussed the approach he wanted us to follow: (1) do at least 3 thumbnail sketches to work out the composition, (2) do quick studies (45 minutes or so) using a "puzzle piece" approach. The idea is to first block in the main masses of color and value first, resulting in a posterized effect, then go in and adjust edges, colors and values to refine the painting.

Kenn demonstrated this approach. He started with the area that would be considered the focal point, the area with the strongest value contrast...this was actually a lit field in the distance between trees. Once he had the big shapes in that area, he worked out to the rest of the painting. Here is his demo piece near the end:


Day 2: We met at a private residence overlooking Lake Ontario. It was a day with beautiful, rapidly changing skies that were featured in many of our studies. We painted in the morning using the same approach as on day 1. After lunch, Kenn did two quick demonstrations. The first was an amazing cloud study that took barely 20 minutes. A couple of participants tried to "paint along" but had a hard time keeping up! I don't have a close-up of the finished piece, but here is Kenn working on it at some point along the way:


Kenn then did another quick demo using an even more limited palette consisting of white, black, cad lemon and permanent rose. This demonstrated the importance of value, and how careful juxtaposition of colors can give the illusion of another color...i.e., no blue paint was used but the sky and water, painted mainly with white and black, still appeared blue:

Day 3: We met in Pittsford and painted either farmland or canal scenes in the morning. After lunch, Kenn did a great demo of an interior woods scene with dappled light. Many of us were wondering about his choice early on when he sketched in that huge foreground tree, but he pulled it off very well. The scene really came alive when he added the touches of sunlight to the forest floor and tree trunk:

We finished out the workshop with a critique of the work done during the workshop, followed by a group dinner. I think everyone had a great experience and came away inspired. I wish we had a couple more days...