Monday 20 January 2014

Back to Art School

I attended a 4 week acrylics painting class with three friends back in November. I've attended classes with this instructor a few times and I really enjoy the way he instructs the class. Lots of technique, composition and colour theory, and then the practical part.... create a painting using everything we had learned.

He normally encourages his students to paint whatever they choose, usually from a photo that they had taken themselves, but this time there was a fixed subject matter.

Our mission this time.... our subject was a still life, this bunch of rather faded flowers, plonked into the vase, no flower arranging, just paint whatever you see and interpret it however you like.

Step one, a quick pencil sketch of the basic shapes, and then add in the darks, lights, and the grey shades in between to determine the values. And then choose a complimentary colour scheme using the colours opposite each other on the colour wheel, and do some preliminary colour sketches.

I did four quick paint sketches on 6" x 8" canvases because I just could not visualise how I wanted my painting to look. That's always the hard part for me, getting started and making a decision on the direction of the finished piece.

We worked on our paintings at home and at the instructor's studio, and even though we were all painting the same subject matter, we produced four paintings that were radically different. This is mine.....

.... using only three colours: Phthalo Turquoise, Cadmium Red and Titanium White. I'm still not sure if I like it. It looks a bit like one of those "Velvet Elvis" type paintings to me.

13 comments:

  1. This is REALLY GOOD. Big pat on the back for this one. Love how you send the viewers eye straight into the petals and then the eye travels around the painting. Great colours together with shading too....keep up the good work :-)

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  2. What I love most about this, Sham (besides that you're doing it!), is the combination of those 3 colors. Totally delightful. Congratulations.

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  3. Looks good. I have no talent, so I play with photos.

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  4. I'm very impressed, Shammie. You have wonderful colour sense and you've created a very lovely piece. All of them are.. but the red and turquoise are particularly vibrant and appealing. Well done.

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  5. I like this!I think you have talent!

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  6. How nice! My interpretation at first sight is that this painting symbolizes things captive in the frigid cold: this is like ice (winter) on fire (human mind). I like it.

    Yoko

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  7. I think it looks really terrific! You are talented, my dear....And I hope you keep painting a whole lot more! It also sounds like this teacher really knows how to let each person bring their personal dynamic to what they create! Thanks for sharing this, my dear!

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  8. You did a fine job with those!

    I hear two different things with the instructions to paint what you see & interpret how you like, so that's like sending me to find a penny in the corner of a circular room. :-)

    I used to paint acrylics, too. I have not yearned to return to that world, but my younger son might be interested.

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  9. You're convincing me to take a painting class one of these days. Someday...maybe! Right now I'm taking 4 weeks of guitar lessons, which is totally out of my element, i'm not musical at all. 1 week down, trying to practice a lot. My fingers hurt.

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  10. I think it's wonderful, not "velvet Elvis" at all. You know what, though? I like the juxtaposition of the four sketches more. Sort of a combination of Monet's water lilies series and some Andy Warhol.

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  11. Fascinating! Love how you've changed the colors. I envy your skill!

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