Hone your painting skills and expand your creative language in this exciting two-day workshop with acclaimed contemporary Canadian artist, Dominik Modlinski. Emphasis will be on risk-taking, design, and mark-making with the aim of taking one’s work to the next level and creating your personal creative signature. We'll look at cultivating your creativity, developing honest and unique brushwork, and establishing narrative symbolism in a painting.

Dominik will encourage you to explore new possibilities and work more intuitively, allowing unplanned marks and passages to become artistic breakthroughs. The subject matter for this workshop will be landscape reference material provided by Dominik from one of his wilderness painting journeys.

The dynamic power of composition and color will be the beginning of this adventure. Working from provided photos, we will create a few thumbnail sketches focusing on key areas including light and dark values, edges and lines as a warm-up. Moving on, we'll decide which “thumbnail” to use for concept development, then you'll compose the subject in a larger drawing, working out further ideas and individual details. From there, we will work on creating studio paintings while visiting aspects of composition, drawing, colour theory, and contour treatment. 

Don’t miss this unique opportunity as Dominik takes you off the beaten path to paint true Canadian wilderness!

Recommended Materials List:

• 18" x 24" newsprint pad, or any large sketchbook you have at home
• drawing board and metal clips to hold your paper
• black Conte stick or charcoal
• A free-standing easel
• A palette (your preference: disposable wax, glass, plastic, or wood)
• Medium (walnut oil or Galkyd medium for oil painters; polymer medium for acrylic painters)
• Non-toxic Turpenoid or Gamsol (for oil paintbrush cleaning indoors)
• Paints: cadmium yellow lemon, quinacridone red, phthalo blue green, and titanium white plus any of your favourites besides black. Dominik suggests cadmium yellow deep, yellow ochre, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, cadmium red deep, alizarin crimson, burnt umber, burnt sienna, viridian green, sap green, phthalo green blue, phthalo green yellow, phthalo blue, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, phthalo turquoise, dioxazine violet
• Suitable brushes: bristle filbert, flat brushes, round bristle brushes, dagger brushes
• Palette knife
• Exacto knife
• Conte pencil
• Pencil sharpener
• Containers for medium, mineral spirit, and water
• Support: a primed surface of 16" x 20" or 18" x 24" (options: canvas, wood panel, hardboard)