Those of you following my ramblings must think that the art production has gone into a hiatus of late, and you are not wrong! Since my break and trip overseas, I have been diverted into other activities, chief of all playing the keyboard. It is nearly as satisfying and frustrating as visual art. I learnt the organ as a child and so can read notes but was not taught classical piano although my sister learnt it, so the many pieces for piano exams is familiar. I have since taught myself to play a couple of Sonatinas and am very pleased with my progress but this is of course, at the expense of painting....
To get going again, I persuaded Jennifer of Art Est to let me do the Contemporary Acrylics course as a casual. Larissa who runs the course tells me that its aim is to help artists become more expressive. Art works that are expressive are seldom as easy as they look - I've tried to loosen up but it still does not come easy. Larissa also reminded me the basics of painting - block in your colours first and cover the canvas before getting into detail, darks should be laid down before light colours, etc. She said she preferred to use a warm colour as a background wash as that gave the paintings a lovely glow. Good tip.
To loosen up, she suggested the use of big brushes as that way it is hard to be precise. I must say I struggled with the palette in this picture of a house set high on the hill with the wineyard before it. It is a simple composition with those converging lines drawing attention to the house. This painting was based on a photo I took in Milthorpe. I am not sure I like my painting - it is certainly more expressive than my other works in the brushstroke. But what I got out of the class was the spark to do more paintings. I believe that if I copied a few works in expressive styles that I admire, I would learn much from the exercise. A lady in the class did a work ala Charles Blackman and it was very colourful but beautifully done. I would love to try something of that sort.
