Rich Brimer, Director
Dan, it’s exciting to finally get to have you lead one of our workshops. Not only are you a good teacher, you’re a great artist, too.
Daniel Marshall
I do a lot of work to try to be a better educator and still not lose focus on what I’m doing personally. So it’s -trying to find the balance of not just being a teacher who paints, but a painter who teaches. So I just try to be as effective as I can. If it’s worth doing, I want to do it right. So that’s my main jam.
Rich
I know you do a lot of Zoom classes now. Did you do that a lot before the pandemic?
Dan
No, that all had to get figured out through COVID. Working out how to make it work — and still, it keeps developing. And it helps inform my in-person teaching. And what I do in-person, helps inform the Zoom stuff.
Rich
So you’ve been teaching for how long? I know you started out with tattoos. And have you been teaching art during that career?’
Dan
I would do some seminars at tattoo conventions and tattoo-related gatherings. So I do have some history of sharing within that time. At one point, when I was painting and still working with Joseph Zbukvic, he said, you should really start teaching now. So I started teaching painting at the urging of my mentor. I only knew how to do that from watching him, and the way he presented. So there was a huge development point for me — figuring out what worked for me and what didn’t and what my style would be.
Rich
Tell me Joseph’s last name again.
Dan
Zbukvic. Z-B-U-K-V-I-C. He’s a living master. I think I first taught a watercolor class in Venice, Italy. I have some friends who run tattoo conventions, and they always mix in fine art teachings, and they’re happier when it’s someone from the community. They’re like, “Dan, would you want to teach?” And I was maybe only in my fourth or fifth year of being really serious about my art. So, it was a lot of fun, and then it just sort of started rolling. I’ve been in Colorado for eight years now. I started to get invites to different events and stuff, and I’d already won a couple of awards. So then your name just starts to get spread around, and it just builds from there. Actually, 2020 was going to be my biggest year of teaching. 2020. I had, like nine workshops booked and they all got dropped, and I was like, oh, fuck me. This was going to be my establishing teaching year.
Well, in a way, it was a blessing in disguise because it did through Covid and just having to survive. I started teaching a six-week individual program. I got people just eating that up because nobody could do anything. But I really learned more about, okay, I need an arc here. I need a syllabus kind of scenario. And that’s come into more of what I do with my either plan air or studio workshops is just, I guess, an idea of having to lay a foundation throughout the week. So it’s not just random, but now it’s easy. I just know what I do. But there was a lot of work and a lot of thought put into how I was presenting. What I was presenting.
Rich
Do you notice yourself teaching a different way than you actually paint?
Dan
It’s simplified. Because if you just jump over the stuff that I did while learning how to get to where I am, you’d never get there. When I do a workshop, I’m teaching to the “ideals” of what I do. And then there’s usually one in the middle—or towards the end of the workshop—where I’ll say, “Okay, now I’m going to do a demo and paint the way that I paint! You’ll see everything that I’m talking about.” But this is where there’s a lot more flexibility because of the understanding. I teach to build a solid understanding of the medium. The way that I handle the medium is not normal compared to what most people have experienced with watercolor. So I always call it the great equalizer because there are people like, “Oh, yeah, I’m talented.” They told me “Oh, you better bring your ‘A’ game, because there’s some really good painters.” I’m like, “No, they’re not.” (laughing) And it’s the reality. I teach a system that exploits the range of consistency of watercolor.
So it’s really taking the comfort out of a lot of people’s hands. So it becomes a lot of fun. The goal isn’t to make a bunch of copycats. It’s about, “do what you want to do, but learn to exploit that and make it better.” There’s a lot of focus on design and composition and drawing. That’s the hard stuff — I try to give as many shortcuts as far as clearing up misinformation and misdirection and lack of knowledge. So it’s a lot of really foundational stuff that I would say oil painters probably know, but watercolors don’t because they’re not thinking of it as painting, they’re often thinking of it as coloring.
Rich
You don’t see those big shapes when you’re drawing with a pencil and sketching out your design.
Dan
You can’t just put blocks and cut into it. So it’s like more forethought, but it’s still “seeing” as a real painter. Yeah.
Rich
And with watercolor, the big reveal comes so late, whereas in oils, you can see it right up front because you can start with your bigger dark shapes.
Dan
Right. So I do teach, notans, because you can really clue into the biggest shapes. You can clue into the shape construction. Okay.
Rich
That gives insight into the Future idea then, right?
Dan
Because it’s really your painting, you have to start by looking into the Future, because it’s not a medium that you can find your way through the painting. Each tone informs the next tone, and it’s all still painting. That first idea of knowing where your background, foreground, the middle ground is. So there’s a lot of reducing shapes. With my subject matter, it’s usually a background, foreground, and middle ground. There are shapes to those. Usually, by the second day, people are starting to clue into it a little bit. Then I bring it back to something simple.
Rich
And then there’s the AHA! moment.
Dan
Yeah. There’s always. It’s great when you teach enough that you can see this pattern of, “You’re going to have fun” then you’re going to be like, “Oh, this is easy.” And then everything’s going to fail, and then you’re going to pull it back, and it’s this wonderful loop that happens. In my six-month group, I can see so much progress, and half the time they don’t see it. And I’m like, let’s go look at what you were doing in month one, because I don’t think you really realize what you’re doing.
Rich
Everybody can learn to see better. Both drawing and painting. Learning to see relationships between Locations of Things and Relationships between values and you’ve got it. So the trajectory of the three-day class for you, which is what this one’s going to be, it’s going to be a short version. Will you do a demo on the first morning?
Dan
The subject matter doesn’t matter. There’ll be a different focus for each demo. I demo twice a day, and students will do two paintings a day. Because if we’re out on a spot, I’m going to cherry-pick what I think is the best thing. There’s a morning demo and an afternoon demo. The demos are quick, 45 minutes to an hour.
Double the time. So there’s a different focus point on the demo, and then I give assistance and help. They’re working. And it’s not a copy of the demo, it’s a copy of the ideas of the demo, which is what I try to stress so they can apply that to a relatable subject. It doesn’t have to be my view or my composition. There are ideas of the importance of what I’m doing and why I chose it. There’s a finite time that you have to paint because you’re painting within the lifetime of what the watercolor is telling you you have to paint. Right?
Rich
So watercolor is very specific that way, and it has to do with the environment and the temperature and the sun and different things.
Dan
Right. I teach a three-wash method. You have a finite time to take advantage of what you can take advantage of while that wash is still alive and mixed within that is composition, is drawing, is color theory, is atmospheric qualities, and edges. So each painting touches on bringing focus to another thing that you really need to pay attention to. But for each demo, there’s a hierarchy of what’s going to be important for that particular painting.
Rich
It sounds like every one of your lessons is going to be this narrow path. This is what we’re learning for the next 3 hours. And let’s do this. Let’s focus…
Dan
Yeah, my whole way of teaching is idiot-proofing everything as much as possible. There’s a rigidity and control in the way that I do things because I’ve been subjected to the opposite in my method of painting. In my method of teaching, there is nothing done by accident or that’s happenstance or haphazard because that leads to things I don’t want to deal with. When it comes to the way that I’m presenting and doing things, it’s all for a reason and the most efficient outcome. My approach is always alla prima, and even in my studio work, it’s the same. I love being able to share and influence. That is the big spiritual payoff.
Rich
Yeah, it’s really obvious the times I watched you and spoken with you. I’m looking forward to spending a few days with you painting.
Dan
It’s going to be GREAT!!
If you are looking for a plein air watercolor painting workshop that will help you capture the beauty of the Monterey and Carmel, look no further than this exciting opportunity to join Dan Marshall for three great days of outdoor painting.
For registration info go to https://www.carmelvisualarts.com/daniel-marshall/
Dan’s Bio
Dan Marshall is a nationally renowned watercolor artist, demonstrator and instructor located in Denver, CO. He is an avid plein air painter, producing the majority of his work on location. He has been featured in and written articles for Watercolor Artist, Southwestern Art, Plein Air Magazine, and OutdoorPainter.com and has received multiple awards from juried shows and invitational events. He has previously served as a juror for The National Watercolor Society, The Colorado Watercolor Society, and The Laguna Plein Air Painters Association.
Dan has earned signature member status with The American Watercolor Society, The American Impressionist Society, The Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, an Artist Member of the California Art Club, and is a member of The Salmagundi Club.
