New Painting Class

Last week, I started taking a 5 week painting class with Carl Oltvedt at Wet Paint, although I’ll miss the last week of class. While it’s good to branch out, it’s also blowing my mind, since it’s a very different way of working plus currently my painting ability is either broken, rusty, or just in an awkward period. We warmed up with gesture sketches of a still life. I really, really don’t get gesture sketches, but I’m trying. For now, I just feel like I’m making a bunch of scribblely lines on paper.

When we started painting, we used matte medium diluted around 25%. We will also be using gloss medium. Other than using glazing liquid, I haven’t used any mediums with my paint. It’s another thing to figure out, as well as painting on a light surface. One of these, I did in class. The other one I did at home. Just for the heck of it when I was done, I tinted some glazing liquid and very lightly applied it to both finished paintings.

#270 - Still Life From Class 1 - Take 1 - 5" x 7" paper

#271 - Still Life From Class 1 - Take 2 - 5" x 7" paper

As time permits, I’m practicing painting this way at home.

#272 - Apple Practice - 8" x 8" - paper

Plus, I am trying to practice doing gesture sketches.

My goal is to stay open, go along for the ride, and embrace stepping WAY WAY out of my comfort zone. Stay tuned......