Stéphane RUAIS : 2012 June 03-08

Oil : mastering modern landscape painting

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Tn this workshop, open to intermediates up to professionals, I will be happy to share my experience and adventure in landscape painting. A painter must have something particular to tell and I will help you to find the way to do so whether it be about an atmosphere, a particular light or a movement. Choosing a subject takes often more time than performing the painting itself because it is essential to paint fast when you are working on the spot. I will show you how to paint as if you were running a race and how to capture, in the first 10 minutes, the nature of the subject, the general tone which will set the mood of the canvas, expressing the weather and the time of day. Working fast, spontaneously and relaxed, using broad and generous brushstrokes will be the order of the day.

Growing up in Brittany, Stéphane Ruais was always close to the sea and began to draw at the age of 8. After graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was first interested in architecture and eventually became a full-time painter. He is a long time sailor and an amateur of old ships which he likes to restore. Appointed official painter of the French Navy in 1991 and, later official painter of the Air Forces and Space, he travels the world frequently to enrich his palette with new discoveries. He has been in numerous exhibits in France and abroad and, of course, in the salon of the Navy in Paris and the Navy museums in Paris, Toulon and Brest. Galleries : des Orfèvres in Paris, en Ré in Bois-Colombes, du Château in Auray, Vue sur Mer in Dinard, Zonzon in Arcachon. Several television specials were devoted to him by Antenne 2 et TF1 and, in 1997, when the Charles-de-Gaulle aircraft carrier was launched, Antenne 2 et TF1 covered the event through his eyes while he painted on the spot. Bibliography : Bénézit, Point de Vue n°2758 p.21-24 May 30 2001, Univers des Arts Hors-Serie n°9 2001, Pratique des Arts n°51 p.61 July-Aug 2003, Hors-Serie "Marines" 2007 p.64-69, Artistes Magazine n°110 p.6-11 July-Aug 2004, Le Chasse-Marée n°182 p.56-63 Oct 2005.

Stéphane Ruais is a master of light and movement which are the dominant characteristics of his art. His powerful and delicate paintings with nuances of blues, greens and colourful greys express the multiple effects of light. As a worthy successor of Marin Marie, his paintings deal with the subject of sailing across seas and oceans but also deal with many other subjects. Preferring to paint on the spot in quest of a sober and clear expression he belongs to the very few painters who know how to express the magic of a site or of a moment with power and accuracy.