Painterly Cross Training

Maybe one of the best things about taking 3 painting classes at the same time is you quickly learn how different teachers have their own way of doing things, and how many things are just preference, not rules.  Joan Fullerton paints with liquid acrylics and lots of water, often using water color techniques, while Nicholas Wilton wants thick opaque color, more like oil painting.  And Nancy Hillis leans towards transparent paints and glazes, but also uses some opaque.

The other good thing about taking 3 at once is the essential lessons cross over, so value, for instance, is important everywhere.  One class reinforces the next in that way and sometimes adds a different twist to it.  Now I'll be absorbing bits and pieces from each class and trying to incorporate them into how I work.


In Joan Fullerton's 4 day workshop last week, I enjoyed working with lots of transparent washes and collage.  I was happy with this one painting I finished and have several more underway.

In Nick Wilton's online program, we are focused on value and design right now.  We're working in black and white and thinking about loud and quiet conversations, eye movement, and differences.  It's a lot to balance at one time and trickier than I expected.

And in Nancy Hillis' class, we're also focusing on value, and I've been working on using warm and cool whites for light values.  Not sure how well they show up in this picture.

Lots of new ideas to take in, and I'm loving being challenged in so many new ways.  It feels like a total work-out.

November Leaves series

I finished the November Leaves series I was working on for Nancy Hillis's Studio Journeys.  I'm used to working in a series, but gave a little more thought to this one along the way.  Working in a series lets me see what habits I get into.  One that popped out at me is that I tend to compose in a circular manner and leave the center open when working in a square format.  So for these last 2 pieces in the series, I made sure I put something in the center and did a more asymettrical compostion.

Some series are tightly related from the beginning and clearly show the theme.  In this one the November leaves idea just served as a jumping off point, and really, my paintings had little related to what November leaves were actually looking like at the time.  That didn't bother me.  To me the important thing is finding inspiration to work and letting one painting inform the next.  At the end though, I did want to include that burst of bright yellow that was still clinging to the trees even late in November.

We're now doing some very exciting color studies which I'll post next week.  After working with these neutrals all month, I'm ready for a new palette.