Art Class Week #8/9

Please Miss, "I quit!"


Well, not the art classes, as I have already signed up to the autumn course, but this painting. I have spent three weeks at class and quite a number of hours at home on this one, as there is so much going on and so much detail, I find myself mixing paint for tiny little areas and messing about with small brushes. It's not that I don't find the painting interesting, it's just that I am so bored doing the same painting for so long.


There are students at the course who have been working on the same painting for the whole course or almost. I just don't know how they can do it! Admittedly, some have done some good work and one lady in particular has done lovely work on the same painting all these weeks, but using the tiniest of brushes to add minute specks of different colour to a painting is quite frankly beyond me. I have seen the odd painting that's been worked on for several weeks and it looks so overworked I want to scream!


Give me large brushes and a good sized piece of paper and let me finish the painting in a few hours please. Spending so much time on one painting is not good for my mind, heart or soul - I have so many ideas going around in my head that are just bursting to get out and onto the paper to mess around that much!


Our tutor tells me that she would rather I did one good painting over the ten weeks, than several mediocre ones done quickly. Well, the quick ones don't have to be mediocre, and can be good testing grounds for a masterpiece to come. I may come back to this painting in the future (if I'm desperate), but for now I have had it up-to-here and want to bury it behind all my wife's pairs of shoes at the back of the wardrobe!


So, summing up, it's been an experience - some bits are OK, others not, but case now closed, I'm off to regain my sanity!

Art Class - Half Term

There was no art class last week because of the school's half term, so I thought I would show you all a WIP (work in progress). We visited the lovely old English town of Shrewsbury while on holiday in Shropshire, where there were so many ancient buildings, narrow streets and beautiful places to sit and have coffee. I took one or two photos with a view to painting at a later date, this being one of them, showing a typical street view.


With only a little paint on the work so far, I am already displeased with it! The sky is too dark and I am sure I don't know if I can cope with so much tiny detail in the beam work of the centre building, being not too good with the smaller brushes. This is one time when loose brushwork is not my aim!


This week at art class, I will be back working on the outdoor cafe scene in week five. Before applying any paint, I think I am going to have a long chat with my tutor after the many hours work on the drawing!