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A few weeks ago I took a three day painting workshop from Clayton Beck.  It was held in the Palatte and Chisel Club in Chicago, which has been a refuge of teaching traditonal skills to artists.   

The focus of the workshop was the process of painting .  Clayton did a figure demonstration the first morning.  He was very good at talking and painting at the same time .  The painting was a figure study of a young woman on a couch.   He stressed squinting to see the value relationships and making each brushstroke count.    That was the only demonstration and the rest of the time was spent painting from different models. under the north light from the windows and later from a full spectrum light which gave a cool light as well.  He talked while we painted frequntly reminding the students to squint and my personal favorite  line he repeated was "When was the last time you put your brush down?'  

Because of my teaching schedule I get little time in front of the model where I get to start and finish a painting.  To have 2 1/2 days of painting models was sheer bliss.  To have someone as knowledgeable as Clayton Beck give pointers and teach the whole time turned bliss into Nirvana.

I took a lot of information away from this workshop and am very happy I took it.  It was a big help with understanding the process better as well as informationa about light and color.   In the long run I hope to use this information to become more concise in my decisions.   Below are some of the paintings I did during the workshop. 

The last session the model did not show so Clayton sat for the class.  He would peer around the class and say "Why aren't you squinting?'  I think that is what I will title my painting of him.