Term 1 2010

Not knowing what the classes and tutors were going to be like I choose 3 subjects that I hoped would help me with painting technique.

The school offers so much! Stone and multi medium sculpture, jewellery, bronze and glass casting, photography, printing, computer illustration and animation, oil, watercolour, acrylic and dry media very tempting to try everything and with dissipation, improve at nothing? So a decision had to be made focus or sample? TLC offer the sampling in their foundation year which I chose to skip so I would focus on painting, I thought I could draw alright so to add colour? 

A challenge.

Monday Gary Freemantle – acrylic

To learn blending, glazing, dry brushing.

                                                                  

To ‘surprise myself’, To be ‘unpredictable’, To get vitality, life, energy, action into your painting’

Kiwiana  kitch - Take well known advert material and create a painting along the same lines as Dick Frizzell.

This was a good class to follow the tutors exercises and throw paint around. I seem to be able to get good ideas when given a project or subject to pursue but having any of my own? Not yet. The one thing I’m looking for is a creative muse to give me inspirational ideas. I meet a great group of people that first day all there ready to experiment and share the experience, Shelia was one of these new friends, so encouraging, enthusiastic and with boundless energy, she uplifted the whole class.

Tuesdays – Dan Wilkinson – Dry Media Magic

 ‘There’s more colours in shadows’ ‘Rounding the image gives it more movement’  ‘There’s green in skin tones’  ‘ Use good quality pastel’ Fix with wax, varnish, glaze or hairspray’.

Dan is an enthusiastic and caring man with a zest for life, I find his exercises harder in one way ie: they ask for more of your feelings,  easier in another, pastels although messy offer a range of colours that you use in their original form and don’t have to try and mix like paint.

Thursdays – Catherine Hayes – Faces Hands and Feet.  

What is the hardest thing to draw? In my opinion the Human form.

So many things to remember  like male bones are closer under the skin and muscles,  Females have a layer of fat, don’t I know it. Eyebrow bones are more prominent in men. The male eyebrow is closer to the eye to keep dust out of the eye while hunting . The female eyebrow being higher for pre verbal communication with babies.  A lot of woman have infantile feature to be more appealing to men. Men have a larynx and more jaw bone.

Bottom of the ear lines up with edge of nose, the ear is like a finger print no two are alike.

The corner of the eye lines up with edge of nose. The centre of the eye lines up with the corner of the mouth. The nose and ears keep growing as we age because they’re cartilage not bone.

A face’s width is approx five eye widths. The top of head to your eye line is the same distance from the eyes to the chin. The measurement from top of head to chin is the same from nose to back of head.

The length of the palm is the length of the longest finger. Knuckles form an arc, running in parallel. The length of the little finger comes to the first joint of the next finger. Index and ring finger are generally the same length.

What a challenging subject, the beginners of course don’t have to worry about mixing flesh colours we primarily use dry media but the whole concept of sketching from a life model! We don’t, in normal conversation, study our fellows physiognomy, we pick up on body language and expression, but to really look is like impolite starring and our mothers have always admonished us not to stare.

I decided to draw the people I knew, my daughter being the hardest to capture, because you only get better with practise. For the class assessment I decided to sketch each of my fellow students.

At the end of term there was assessment in each class each tutor having their own ways of assessing you. Some were one on one with all the material you have produced in the 10 weeks, or with just a few pieces your particularly proud of, or a group effort where you display your art pieces on the wall and your fellow students have an opportunity to comment.

EXERCISE YOUR COURAGE MUSCLES!  This is so hard, can’t even remember the last time I was in school, the saving grace, this is a very relaxed school but I want to get as much out of this as I can while I’m here, my husband has given me a gift and I don’t want to squander it. So I go home with homework, not liking to start something new till I’ve finished what I’ve started.