RPW Makes Art : 10 Minutes For A Painting

I have been painting more and blogging less.

Last Saturday in class, it was the 10-minute painting exercise and I felt really good in class. All the sludge going on in the world receded and I felt very present and open.

It’s a nice group of women and a big part of what I enjoy is seeing what other people are doing. We are using the same materials and working on the same assignments for the most part. The biggest variation between people seems to be paint brushes.

It’s fascinating what people do. One person uses a tiny brush and just sets things up and goes to work. One person for last week’s homework took a deep dive into shiny things and the colors she found in the shine was amazing.

I always feel so inspired.

It can be hard to put your own work up for others to see. After that initial reluctance, it’s okay. Enough time has passed that everything looks a little better for a fresh eye than I might have recalled.

In class last week, we did the 10 minute painting exercise. In one of my spiral notebooks, I already had an 8” x 8” ready to go where the ground was pink and I had brought a green apple.

While I can’t quite replicate this exercise as well at home, the forced pressure and limitation of doing a 10 minute 2” x 2” painting 4 different times is actually freeing. There is no “do not”. There is only do and even if the piece ends up with significant issues, there is something magical about the process and result as well. You are in the moment. Some decisions work out. Some don’t. While there is pressure, the stakes are very low and it’s a good way to get into “the zone”.

I like painting on black, but, occasionally, it’s also fun to try a different ground. When I do this and my first stroke goes down, my visceral reaction is slight panic. OMG. What have I done? This color is not behaving the way it should. The passes quickly and it’s time to get to work.

Here’s what I did in class.

Since class last Saturday, I have done 2 more sets of 10 minute paintings, although I did cheat and go longer on several ones. Also, time constraints meant that I would do 2 of them and go back and do the other two later. You lose a bit by not doing 4 of them.

Pears could become my favorite fruit to paint.

Someone in class last week had some lovely deep red apple paintings. I find it difficult to paint deep red apples and decided to give it a go. I think I still need to add some more white and have been practicing this in some other paintings.

For the rest of these, I’ve been trying to do 37 paint strokes or less, although I always seem to lose count, or trying to limit the time spent painting.

This one was painted on a green background. I’ve been playing around with using a flat brush rather than a bright. I can get juicier paint strokes with the flat, but my edges get sloppy and I’ve been losing the outer shape of what I’ve been painting quite a bit. That happened with this one. I also find that I tend to lose shape more often or worse on the left side of things and I have no idea why.