Monday, January 04, 2010

Bring Your Own Canvas


Today I hosted my first ever art class!

The lesson covered the very basics of color mixing, shading and shadows, color plains, and an admonition to work from darks to lights, especially when using oil paints. I then gave a very simple demonstration on a technique to use when beginning an oil painting. (My demo is the partially done apple on the right with the orange background.)

The still life is set up in the corner of the dining room. The two "students" pictured are hard at work. Both students had never used oils before, so instead of them making a huge monetary investment to join the "class," I let them both use my supplies, but bring their own canvas. The clean-up afterwards has been an effort, but both students were really pleased with their completed paintings. I couldn't have been more delighted that they were so satisfied with their work.

In my naive ignorance, I thought that there would be time and leisure for me to paint alongside the students. However, instructing the students used the entirety of my personal brain capacity and every last little ounce of time. Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Anyone else interested in some personalized art instruction?

3 comments:

erinhazel said...

who are the students? do you have pictures of their completed paintings? at what point will you ask them to contribute for paint supplies?

Sarah Hazel said...

Friends and neighbors.
Yes.
I don't know. Soon, I imagine.

There she goes! said...

I'd be interested sometime! Mostly because I want to understand it, the oil paint. Funny how we recognize so many famous works of art painted in oil paint, but most of us have never tried it ourselves.

(Do you plan on doing any mosaic work soon? Last month I shattered a blue Pyrex brownie pan, and I can't bear to toss out the pretty pieces. They're sharp, though--they'll need to be tumbled first.)