Sunday Fun Day

The Forgiving Medium, an acrylic painting workshop, met Sunday at The Art of Your Life Studio. In the picture below, Helen works on her second piece of the day, a picture of two cherubs. She goes to Da Vinci Arts Magnet School and is one of several students chosen to commandeer one of the school halls for a show of her work. I first knew Helen through her mother, whom I met at the Buckman Art Show and Sell several years ago. When I gave up weaving for painting, I gave Helen my loom to work on as she was into textile arts. Now she has joined me in abandoning weaving for painting, and her painting ability shows her passion for this medium!

Helen, foreground, and Nell, right, hard at work

Nell is an abstract painter, but was willing to experiment with her first figurative piece in order to try out the palette knife and impasto method of acrylic painting. This cell phone photo doesn't do her pear justice, I'm afraid--her pear is vibrant, loose, and meaty!

Nell's first representational experiment

Nell decided she was still devoted to abstracts and tried out several of the mediums provided to make them. We used molding paste for impasto and palette knife work, gel medium for smoother work, and glaze medium for building up thin layers of color.

Nell's glowing abstract

Kaira had never painted before. She produced some amazing pieces and found her style right away!

Kaira at work on her magic tree

Below is Kaira's first painting ever, of a leaf. Again, the phone picture (forgot real camera) is but a shadow of the Real Thing. Kaira did a richly colored, antiqued looking background and then created her leaf with thick impasto, scratching the details in the wet paint.

Kaira's Leaf

Here's one of Nell's richly layered abstracts (detail).

Helen's Cherubs

Helen used an existing painting from a book for her inspiration for this piece, but the rendering, composition, color, and style are all her own!

Helen's Pear, done with short, thick brushstrokes

Nell worked on the abstract below but before adding the white, felt the work was too dark. I suggested she "fling" some white paint on it. Nell developed her own method for doing this, with great results. Apparently in a past incarnation she used to smoke, and she used the ash flicking technique to great advantage in getting the white onto the circular canvas. This just proves that even former bad habits can make a positve contribution in the service of art! Her piece has lots of movement and power!

Nell's Circle Abstract

Below is Kaira's "Magic Tree" (title mine.) She worked on it for a long time. At first it looked like a very lovely realistic representation of a tree. We all loved it and urged her to stop at several points. She kept saying, " I just want to do one more thing." It is fortunate that she didn't listen to the rest of us, as her tree became a more and more stylized, magical, dream of a tree!

Kaira's Tree

This was a wonderful day with three delightful and courageous painters!