Learn the best introduction into miniature painting with all basic skills on this workshop

Hello Jungle Painters,

finally I find the time to write the review of a cool painting class we had some weeks ago.
Find all actual news around miniature painting workshops here!

Again we did meet up in Blumberg-Achdorf for one of Jar's Beginners Classes - again in early spring, which feels like a small tradition in the meantime.

Big thanks to Vlado and Phil from DieVincis and Peter from MV for their organisation help. Again it was a Deluxe-Class, which means we all slept at one house, had a great cook, named Reiner who helped us staying energized with true healthy and tasty food.

We are always looking forward to be in this location for one of our classes as teh organisation is close to perfect and it is also nice that everyone is at one place. Nobody can escape the painting madness that occours during the weekend.

Stones, I always take some from Blumberg for my stone collection at home.

The class was half mixed up with students who did the class for the first time and the other half were students doing the class for a second or a third time. Repeaters. I was happy that Raffa was with me and helped me during the weekend.

I want to say thanks to everyone of you for being a part of this weekend, for supporting me as an Artist and a teacher with your participation, your will to learn and your power in painting during the whole weekend.

Many students brought their projects and again we were able to see a beautiful collection of projects in nature. Thank you all for that. Thanks to Oliver and Phil, who supported this review with their photos. I was truely busy over the weekend and was not able to do many photos of myself.

Another big thanks goes to the sponsors of the class, those companies who help MV with their support in material to bring a happy painting time to different locations:

PK-Pro

Sockelmacher

Juweela

Modelmates

and Kellerkind Miniatures.

And not to forget Big Panda V who also had a little vendor's tray in Blumberg for emergency shopping.

Mkay, so far about the "Thank you", now let's dive into the class with a little review on what this class is about:

The word 'beginner' might be confusing to many first time participants of this class.

It is not a class for 'only' beginners. In fact it is a class for every person, at every age interested in figure painting, whatever their experience level is.

'Beginners class' means here that I, Roman aka jarhead gives an introduction into my way of thinking while painting, in detail a lot of important theory is explained while doing a walk through Art History and is used in practical exercises. During the weekend you will not only learn to improve your painting skills, you will also learn the 'Why?' behind everything explained and with that you will be able to teach yourself in your own hobby future by just recognizing what nature has to offer and most important: Have fun!

The theory parts contain:

- Learn to see your world with different eyes

- Introduction into basing composition

- Learn how to feel harmony in different aspects

- Important contrasts for figure painting

- Explanation about how to paint a light situation on your figure

- Understand colour theory and learn how to use it properly

- Learn about different materials, their unique properties and learn to paint them

- Learn to lose fear of doing something wrong

- much more!

Thanks to Vlado's review over on DieVincis blog!

Thanks to Oliver who wrote a review of being a student at the class for the third time.

You can read it here in english.

Friday

The first day is mainly the evening, where we have a mix between introduction, preparing, theory, basing and more theory. This time it went by so fast that there are not many photos to tell you something about it. I think this is a good sign, everybody was busy in building up their bases and even when I went to bed in the middle of the night still some students were busy at their basework. That is what I call focus - thumbs up!

Saturday

The morning arrived earlier than expected and with it you could already have a taste of early spring's warmth.

Sun floated our working room ...

And after a wonderful breakfast it was time to gather in the "classroom" ...

Saturday morning was filled with a little more guided preparation and guided theory of our little projects as the plan was to prime shortly before lunch. Priming went well for everyone, except the green grass which went black and white. Remember, do not spray any objects or nature while you prime your models, you can easily hold them in your hands and protect your skin with a rubber glove.

Contrast, eh?

Happy Primer!

Seeing all these cool projects primed and ready for painting is always a wonderful moment during the class. They are ready to see light and shadow, ready to find their colourful journey, but yet they are "canvas-virgins" and look so cool.

You can now see why some worked the other night on their bases!

Well, after lunch it was time to paint. With step by step introduction on my table we worked our bases during the afternoon.

The weather was truely beautiful outside, but we were on the inside and were supposed to stay there for the painting good.

It was time to close the windows for a long painting night! No escape from colors!

Sunday

Sunday Morning arrived beautiful again and a lesson learned during many painting classes took grip of me: Get enough sleep during a painting class weekend! I didn't this night as we had so many good talks after the class during Saturday night. Well, leason learned many times in the past, but failed once again. Me wasn't the worst, go ask Raffa and Vlado - they are madmen! :D

Sunday morning was still beautiful, but well a little filled with a hangover for some of us. The breakfast cured that all and the happy painting tricks ahead on this Sunday made us all strive forward.

Well, we do not have many photos of during the class in here, but I now want to show you the results of one weekend basing and painting madness with some explanations to the student's work. Big thanks again to Oliver who took the time to make photos of all of them.

The first one is the result from a class first time student.

You can really good see how he understood zenithal light on the model

and used colour contrasts we talked about.

Second one is also a first timer's model.

A cool urban base with a red demonish lady on top.

This "small" base was done by a class repeater, by a student who took the class for the fourth time now if I am not wrong and it was a joy to see this duel of the lady with the power weapon and the big evil work grow. You can really hear the action going on.

Another first timer's model - not completly finished as the glowing circle of conjuration is still missing on the ground.

A repeater of the class who took aim to

build up only a wonderful base of a child's room.

Again, a repeater of the class who was up to paint his first bust during the class.

A first timer of the class, who definatly went crazy in the size of his base. It was hard to paint it all up just because of its pure size.

A repeater of the class who wanted to go for bright and strong colours this time. He was doing a cool study of black and white colours before on one of those Harlequins and this time he said he wanted to give the opposite a try. Sadly, Sunday was filled with a little headache and less painting time.

This student went for skintones mainly and painted the cool snipress up to the rooftop. Also a repeater of the class who aimed on one specific topic mainly.

Lil' Grandma from Hasslefree was done by a repeater of the class

and you can see the pure fun he had with his project.

Beautiful underwater scenery was created by this student. I always say you can see the spirit of a lady in their paintwork and it is the same here. She has done so well in the overall composition of the piece and I love how harmonic everything appears.

This old temple base was done by another class repeater and during the class I was worried that this particular student only asks questions all the time and was missing the painting work back at the table, but well I was wrong. It was good that he asked so many questions. Really cool result.

Here we have some more powerful colour play presented.

This first timer of the class really enjoyed to work with strong colours too.

A small nightmare scene in a child's bedroom was this first timers project.

The bloodstain on the pillow is really scary.

Look into my eyes you fool! That is what this demonette is screaming to her watchers. Another cool

first timers project with wisely chosen colours.

Again, a first time student of the class who worked with a very interesting base composition.

During the class I called that project the "orange issue" as the first time student and I were really struggling to get hold of the orange skintone here, but he did well in the end!

Powerful red on this lady. This student went for some magic going on with the base, but sadly we were not able to do the magic effect on the ground during the class. Can not wait to see it finished.

A repeater of the class who did not really paint between this and his last class visit.

Shame on you!! ;) He went for a demonette again to train his skills.

This repeater of the class was visiting us earlier for a private coaching about painting the face of this Mongol warrior. He now took the chance to get more into that bust while doing the silk, fur and leather parts. Closing in to see the full picture of the vision.

This repeater of the class took his aim on painting a character model for his Warmachine Army, but wanted to improve here and there. Main focus was on his first compley freehand on the cloak.

This repeater of the class was completly lost in his Zen.

A Ronin talking to a butterfly, sitting on his wooden stick.

Main goal for him was getting back to painting after a long break.

Well, the teacher of the class I can say I am very proud of what you all achieved during this weekend. Really cool. I know it was exhausting, but I really enjoyed the fun we had together. Once again many thanks for your participation and your will to learn and paint that hard.

Keep on happy painting and see you next time!