New tricks...

I guess I'm not such an old female dog after all, as I am learning some new tricks! I signed up to take an oil painting class, and it began last night. I am basically a self-taught oil painter, and I paint like a tapestry weaver... one bit at a time. So I signed up for this specific class and teacher, because it is clear from her work that she does not paint like a tapestry weaver! And I was right in making that assumption... she wants us to paint very quickly, doing everything wet-in-wet.

In last night's 3-hour session, I did 5 small studies. Granted, they are not all complete, as we will do some glazing over a few of them when they are dry next week. She wanted us to get the basic subject down in less than 10 minutes. It was a fun and, for me, very different way of working. One thing I decided is that, for this class at least, I will have to choose simpler subject matter than I am used to choosing! Her work has a large emphasis on fruit and flowers, which are lovely and quite popular in galleries, but not what I am most drawn to. So this morning I went through some of my photo stash and chose a few things I can take to work from next week. I think they will all work with the techniques we've learned so far. Yeah, I know, birds and cups; what else is new?

One of the techniques we used is a subtractive method, where you cover the whole canvas with paint, then rub out the lights of the subject, and some lights in the background to 'reveal' the subject. Very fun! Those are the ones we will then glaze over next week when they are dry.

I didn't take my camera last night, and we left our work there to dry, but next week I'll take some 'in progress' photos to share with you. But right now, back to the studio to work a bit, doing what I already know how to do....