I've always thought it would be fun to do a bit of oil painting but have never tried it due to the odor and the solvents. Now I don't have to work with them to get a similar effect since Golden, my favorite paint company, has created their new Golden OPEN acrylic paints. They are specially formulated to have a longer wet period, allowing the artist to combine and manipulate the paint for a much longer time. Last Friday I learned about them in a Golden OPEN Working Artist class offered by local painter, Mary Morrison.
The class was an absolute blast. I had a lot more fun and gained a lot more knowledge than I had expected. It was a small class of three of us so it was very individualized.
The first exercise was to do this boat scene. (Mine is the one in the upper right hand corner with the darker purple sky.)The intent of this painting was to learn about the different items that could be mixed with the paint to change its composition. We did an underpainting with regular acrylics. Next we painted in the boat. Then we mixed some of the blue paint with the gel. This created a thicker color that we could manipulate with the palette knife. That was really fun. It was also hard to decide what kind of water I wanted - actively waving, swirly or calm. The sky was added in after the water was done. Here we added thinner to the paint so that we could get a different level of control. The final element in the painting was to use the thinner directly on the paint as a means of removing the color to make the sun.
The nearly monochromatic eggplants were next. These had several interesting experiences including painting on a molding paste surface. I had never tried that before, but loved it. (I think some of my favorite knowledge was more about the gel, thinner, paste and molding pastes - that opened an entirely new world!)It was interesting to see how different each person's painting was. My eggplant is the one on the bottom in the photo above. Here again we painted a base color. This time it was Quinacridonel Gold. It is Mary's favorite color. (She told us about a time when she was at a workshop for the working artists which took place at the Golden factory. She was thrilled to find that they were making this color, her personal favorite. We used the paint with the different mixed in items again, but this time it was more about removal instead of adding in. At the end we used the end of the brush to "draw" on the painting. This is referred to as Sgraffito. It was perhaps one of the most fun elements. It was so free and unrestrained. If you did not like what it looked like you could simply move around the paint and give it another go.
At the end of the class we picked a piece of art that we would like to imitate. I did mine on a light molding paste. My image was a mix of images from David Body and a hand tinted photo from a Flickr photogroup. I do not have a picture of this to share, I will share it later.
At the end we got to see Mary's personal paintings. I loved them. She works on large boards that have been gessoed and then underpainted. Next she mixes the paint with a paste to put on a foundation for her abstract landscapes. She moves the paint around with these rubber things called paint shapers. She also gave us lots of hints such as the fact that rubbing alcohol is great for removing pain from paintings and from brushes, providing it is not completely dried. Mary was a wonderful instructor. She offered information in an easy to understand way and met each person where they were operating from. I would recommend any of her classes.
I hope to get to go to another on of her classes.I also appreciated all of the small samples that Golden provided for the class. I had expected that we would just get a bit of paint on our palettes. I was thrilled to find that I had paint to take home and work with.
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On a completely different note, here's a great recipe for camping or just eating that I am making today:
Cream Cheese Chicken
1 pkg. Good Season Italian Dressing Mix
3-4 chicken breast, cubed
1 stick butter
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
¾ c. cream cheese
Noodles
Combine dressing, chicken and butter in crock pot. Cook for 4 hours on high, 6 hours on low. Take chicken out and add remaining ingredients, mixing well. Return chicken to crock pot and cook on high for ½ hour. Serve with noodles.
Here's a movie that I might have to go see. I think the actors are both wonderful:
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