Don Hatfield Still Life Class at Capital Art Center

Don's Demo

I started this 4 week class last week. When I heard about it I jumped. Don is an amazing teacher and painter, so I made time for this. I am teaching still life to my students on Wednesday, so I knew I could learn something (a lot!) from Don that would enable me to be a better teacher myself. As a teacher I want to give my students what they need to succeed.
We were very blessed today to witness this beautiful demonstration. Don paints in a manner that resembles Sergei Bongart, whom he studied with 8 hours a week for two solid years. It was exciting to see this painting come together from start to finish. Even though Don complained about how things were not working out, it is obvious that things worked out very nicely!
He talks a lot about large color/value shapes. I cannot stress this enough. I still want to paint smaller value shapes way too early in my paintings. But Don says just wait, and it will pay off. He starts with a lot of grayed down color where as I usually start with more color. I find it interesting the way he "finds" the value/color, by studying his subject and "comparing one value next to another". I saw it work right before my eyes. It was wonderful to see his subject come alive when he found the correct value! I want to paint this way and I feel very fortunate to be able to work with Don here in Sacramento.
Don just put out a new video, so go to his blog and find out more.....
http://hatfieldfineart.blogspot.com/