April 26, 2016 - The day I learned that perhaps I could be an artist

April 26, 2016 was the day that my sister, Beth, and I went to a paint-along class in Franklin.  It was at an artist's studio in downtown Franklin, but I won't name the place since the owner of the studio didn't teach the class. I don't want to give her negative publicity since she didn't have anything to do with the class we took.  There is another artist (the one that taught our class) that uses that studio to teach classes once a week. The teacher, who I also won't name, was nice in some ways and pretty awful in others. She let us switch the painting that we would do as a class.  So that was nice. She ignored my sister's questions, and then when I asked her a question about painting the background flowers, she took my brush and finished my painting for me.  Really!  She took the brush, sat down on my stool and finished my painting!  I kept saying, "OK, I understand now" "Thanks, I see now" and similar comments, hoping she'd stop and let me finish my own painting.  She kept on sitting there, though, and not only painted in background flowers, but finished the entire thing for me - going back over the shading I'd already done and re-doing the leaves and some of the flowers.  Sigh!  I have zero feeling of ownership of that painting now.  How could I?  And my sister kept asking for help, and the teacher either didn't hear or chose to ignore her.  The teacher talked on her phone and acted really impatient to get us out of there!  There were only 3 people in the class.  So it wan't as though she had a bunch of other people demanding her time.  It wasn't the best introduction to painting - except that I realized that before the teacher commandeered my painting, I was enjoying the experience and I wasn't as awful as I always thought I would be.

I had it almost finished on my own when the teacher took over.  :-(  The first photograph is one I took of my painting a little while before asking the teacher how to do background flowers.  I had smoothed out some of the shading before she took over - but not a lot.

And here is the "finished" item.  She re-did the leaves, added flowers, worked on the shading and highlighting.  Really, I was dumbfounded as I watched her.  She totally took it over, and completely ignored my very pointed comments that anyone with the least bit of sensitivity would understand was a nice way of saying, "Stop it!"   Of course, it is a better painting as a result of her work on it.  However, it isn't "my" painting.  Sigh.

Painting #1 - Three Flower Pots
(Acrylic on canvas - done in a "paint-along" class, April 26, 2016)

A few days passed, and Beth and I decided to buy some painting supplies and try painting on our own.  After all, if someone as bad as that teacher could do it, then we figured we could, too.

Beth looked at a lots of YouTube videos that basically followed the same format as the class we'd attended.  Following a video would be easier and cheaper (we thought!) than going to another paint-along class.  The artist in the video would paint a picture - describing what he/she was doing - and people who watched the video could follow along to paint their own picture.  I looked online at videos, and I finally decided to paint-along with the "Art Sherpa" (Cinnamon Cooney) and paint a rooster.  I raise chickens, and so a rooster is an animal I'm familiar with.  Here is my first painting using a follow-along video:

Painting #2 - Rooster
(Acrylic on canvas - done following a "paint along" video by The Art Sherpa, May 2016)

Overall, I am pleased with it.  However, I still don't feel that it's "mine" since I merely followed along a video - imitating everything the teacher did.  Everyone who followed along with the video would end up with a painting that looks basically like mine.

My next project happened when I went to my mother's.  We covered the table in her breakfast room with newspapers, and Beth and I - along with our sister, Joan, and nieces Brianne and Natalie - painted.  I chose a painting of a rose that I found in a book.  This was the result:

Painting #3 - Red Rose
(Acrylic on canvas, done following a painting in a book, May 2016)

What I learned from this painting is that I need to think of what a REAL rose looks like. As I finished this painting, I realized that I had not even tried to "see" the rose, I had merely tried to copy the brush strokes I saw in the painting in the book. Overall, though, I was pleased with this endeavor. It was only my 3rd painting, but it was the first one that didn't involve any active instruction. I had to look at something and try to paint it. While there is much I could improve, I think it's a fairly decent attempt by someone who never considered that she had even a smidgeon of artistic ability. I want to paint roses again - and next time I will think about what a rose looks like as I paint it.

The next day at my mother's I decided to paint more flowers. This time I would paint daffodils or jonquils. I sketched out the table, background and vase with chalk on the canvas - and used the illustrations in the book about drawing flowers to make the blooms. The painting turned out okay for a fourth attempt at painting. The vase is too large, there needs to be more flowers, and the shading/highlighting needs work. However, it was good practice. Someday I'll do another painting of jonquils.

Painting #4 - "Jonquils"
(Acrylic on canvas, May 2016)