How We Did the Art Class - for Missions

August 7 I taught a painting class. I posted about it on my church blog, but thought I should post about it here on my art blog.

There are some places around here that do this sort of thing all the time. That's where we got the idea. Only since this was a church deal to raise some money for a mission team going to Portugal the money goes to missions rather than the teacher.

I had LOTS of fun teaching and I have heard from several of them saying they want us to do this all of the time.

Here's how it worked.

I painted a picture to use as a model and to help advertise. It's 16x20 gallery wrapped canvas painted with acrylic paint. I didn't use my nice thick acrylic paints because I wanted to use the same paint they would be using (and it had already been purchased by someone else for another project). I was still pleased with how it turned out.

20 people signed up for the class.

We met on a Sunday afternoon at 4:00.

Each person had a set of brushes, a canvas with the outline of a vase and table and a foam plate to use as a pallet. I showed them how much paint to get of each color.

Then I walked them through each step of the painting - demonstrating on a canvas and walking around giving them ideas of what they should be doing.

You'll see from the slide show how even though we were painting the same thing, each painting is different. Very cool.

Here is the painting I ended up with. The flowers are bigger than on the original. It was kind of difficult to paint and walk around commenting on everyone else's paintings.

The Secret of Vivid Color

Vivid Color. There's not really a "secret" to it. There is a simple way to figure out how to get a big POP in color in your paintings. Look at a color wheel. Using colors that are across the wheel from each other add excitement, pizazz, drama and interest to your painting. In some paintings you'll want a lot of color splash and vibrancy so you'll have many places on the canvas where colors opposite each other on the wheel are right next to each other. If you want a painting that is calmer, more peaceful and relaxing then you'll keep your big contrasting colors away from each other or use them in smaller doses.

Colors opposite each other on the color wheel add the most exciting contrast when they are next to each other in your painting.

I just painted "Hydrangeas in an Orange Vase" this week. It will be a model for a group of mostly non-painters who will all get together for a painting "lesson." I wanted a painting with a lot of "woohoo here we go" in the color, so you'll notice that the background is violet and yellow (opposites on the wheel) and the blue flowers are contrasted with the orange vase (also right across the wheel from each other.)

There are places around here - and possibly around the country, but I don't know about other places - where you go and spend a couple of hours painting. The instructor gives directions and demonstrates for the attendees step by step instructions where they can create a painting that is very similar to the sample.

On August 7, at 4:00 at Hilldale's Family Life Center, I'll be teaching those who come how to paint a picture that will end up looking a whole lot like this painting.

If you want a calmer version of this same painting you can do that too. You'll just need to use colors in the background that are close to each other on the wheel. The vase could be a different shade of blue or maybe a purple or green (close to blue on the wheel.) You'll still have a beautiful painting it just won't make your eyes pop out like this one does.

Neglected Blog

Oh wow! I just saw that my last post here was a year ago! It's been very difficult to post because I haven't had an Internet connection at home and haven't wanted to take work time to post something.

We now have Internet at home, thanks to AT&T and a DSL line. I hope it works OK. I've never really heard rave reviews about DSL but of course it's the cable people who talk bad about DSL. All I know is it can't be worse than DISH Internet where if a fluffy cloud goes by you lose your signal. (That may be a slight exaggeration but it really is a bad way to get Internet.)

So over the next few days I hope to catch up a little on my "art" blogging. I suppose another good idea would be to create some new art to put on here. The art I've been doing lately is walls at home. I guess that will be my next post.