GREENS! — Painting Trees and foliage
A ZOOM WORKSHOP
Instructor: Mike Hernandez
Medium: Gouache, Acrylic or Oil
Dates: February 22, 23, 2025 (Sat-Sun)
This 2-day ONLINE workshop will be from 1 pm to 7 pm EST with an hour break at 3 pm.
Skill Level: Appropriate for all levels
Fee: $225
Download Supply List <—
Gain invaluable insights into capturing a sense of natural or stylized lighting and color with gouache! Having a strong understanding of natural color and lighting is an important asset to any environment artist or fine art painter.
A strong understanding of natural color and lighting is an important asset to any environment artist or fine art painter. Among the challenges of outdoor painting, trees, and foliage tend to be a couple of the most difficult subjects to paint. They need to come across as both effortless and convincing. A painter needs to also understand the dynamics of atmospheric perspective to know how to change the color of trees and foliage as they move back into the landscape.
In this 2-day gouache workshop, Mike Hernandez will share his methods for tackling complex trees and foliage. Through his demos and lectures, he will show you—via ZOOM—how to address every aspect of your work, from value, composition design, shape and color hierarchies, paint texture, brushwork, and more. This is a great workshop for anyone interested in painting and who would like to learn how to capture a rich sense of natural lighting and color into their artwork. You can choose any medium to paint with—Mike will be using gouache.
NOTE: This online class will be taught via Zoom. Students will have the opportunity to interact with Mike, watch his live demos (en plein air and studio), receive instruction, and get limited feedback. You can choose any medium to paint with—Mike will be using gouache. You’ll receive instructions about how to access the class a week before the workshop. To take this class, you need a microphone and camera-enabled computer OR an IPad/smart tablet OR a smartphone (android or IOS) and an internet connection.
Mike is a fine art plein air, painter, and has been a Visual Development Artist/Production Designer and Art Director at DreamWorks Animation. Some of his past projects include Sinbad, Spirit, Over The Hedge, Shrek 4, Puss In Boots, Bee Movie, Monsters Vs Aliens, and Turbo.
Register here for Mike’s ZOOM Gouache Workshop
A quote from Mike while talking to Eric Rhodes…
When you become a seasoned painter, the paintings that have more simplicity in them, and when they are distilled they tend to be the ones that we react to the most. You know, the distilled version. There’s a hierarchy to what’s most important to them. When they learn to distill, I feel that most people when they get into landscape is that they’re overwhelmed by too much information, and they don’t know where to start. You know, when it comes to the landscape, they’re thinking already of the details, and all the literal things that are bogging them down and then they become a prisoner to their subject. They’re blinded to all of the things that they’re holding on to too tight, like the things that we’ve come to—things like “never paint the things” just paint the broadness of form… paint the broadness and the simplicity of color, and then find an area where you maybe want to focus a little bit more attention, you know, when you’re painting. I’ll see beginning artists start off their painting and they’ll start imitating the texture of the tree or trying to paint every brick on the building. And I’m thinking, NO! Iit’s not necessary to have to be so… so tied to the detail, when in fact, less is always going to be more in a painting. The more you put into the painting, the less the viewer is going to see. I’ve had students who have a hard time understanding that.
