Another fun acrylics class!

Eleven of us worked on acrylic flowers and buildings yesterday, with great results!  I was impressed with the intense focus and determination in each participant.  I hope they will all continue to work on their art at home, somehow carving out the time from busy schedules to practise their skills.  

Remember, take the product lightly, but take the process seriously!  

A Birthday Celebration Painting Event!

What a great idea!  Yesterday I led a paint day for 6 family members in celebration of Grandma's birthday, in a lovely home that also serves as The Colonel's Rest Bed and Breakfast, in Mount Forest, Ontario.  (Check it out at  http://www.bbcanada.com/colonelsrest and on Facebook at The Colonels's Rest B&B. I highly recommend it!)

Everyone completed a flower painting, which will be proudly hung on Grandma Diane's wall at home.  Some members even finished a second painting.  There were lots of laughs, a fabulous lunch was served by hostess Kay, and fun was had by all.  

The birthday girl seemed to be having the most fun of all, of course! Since she was used to oils, not acrylics, it was a whole different experience.  She tells me they just don't blend nicely like oils!

Hostess Kay is starting on her second daisy painting. She created the lovely flower pins we all wore for the day, in honour of Grandma Diane.

I was amazed at how quickly everyone chose a flower composition to work with.
Each person had a different colour problem to work out.  For a poppy, we had to make a translucent red for highlights, not a pink red.  Mixing a lovely orange did the trick.

Here are the finished paintings:  You can tell we are all pleased with the results.  (Even the dog!)

A new painting.......

This is an acrylic, on a 20 X 24 canvas.  I took the photo in Toronto recently, when I was visiting the AGO with my cousin Beth.  This lovely home was so stately!  I took the photo from close up, so it towered over me.  I enjoyed painting it immensely, with all the angles and shapes and values that went together to give the house a pleasing 3D shape.  I love to make a canvas come alive with depth and form.  I took photos of the process along the way, which might be interesting to take a look at, below the finished piece here.

A fun class!

On Saturday March 15, six of us had a great day playing with watercolour.  Everyone went home with 2 paintings well on the way, including work with a negative approach.  There were times of quiet and concentration, and also times of laughter--  such as the moment a paintbrush went into a coffee cup!  It was so rewarding to see how each artist is developing their own style, and is intent on improving by working hard, and by listening to each other's helpful, constructive ideas. 

 Thanks to each participant!

My next watercolour class.......

......is this Saturday, March 15.  One of the ideas for the class is a still life, so I've been playing around with one set-up this week.  Here is a sample of what we might be doing........


First the set-up, and a value sketch:

Then drawing on the paper and putting on the first light layers of paint:

And finally adding the darks, to give the shapes depth.  

My favourite part!

There is still room for more participants!

"Recess" at a Mennonite school

My latest painting is from a photo I took as I drove past this school somewhere between Hanover and Kitchener--  I'm not sure just where!  I simplified the shapes and left out a lot of detail.  The larger shapes and their values are much more interesting to me than the little details.  There is a nostalgic touch to the final result!

"Recess"
acrylic
12 X 36

Here is a close-up, since it comes out so small on this post:

My next class on February 22.............

.............we'll try trees, with studies for both summer and winter.  We all think we know what trees look like, but it's good to take a closer look at the real thing, as well as photo references.  A deciduous forest will come to life through a "negative" exercise, like these studies I've just been working on:

    

                                                                 

       

And here's a little study of evergreens.

I hope the participants get some good insights into painting trees with watercolour!  Looking at tree shapes all around me, especially in winter when they are beautiful skeleton shapes, has become a regular and inspiring habit of mine.......