Gah! Sunday is my last class; I can’t believe how quickly the summer has flown by! I’ve learned so much and thoroughly enjoyed each of my painting classes. This is the first course I’ve ever taken where not only did I never miss a class, but it didn’t cross my mind to WANT to skip a class. I’m really going to miss my Sunday afternoon ritual of riding my bike along the seawall, then spending the day painting.
Fortunately, as summer winds to an end the fall classes are ramping up. My lovely parents are going to help out and I’ll be taking two classes in September: Drawing Fundamentals and Basics of Composition and Form. They’re both core classes for the Fine Art Techniques Certificate program. Might not be the most exciting classes, but important ones, I think.
Homework for the final class is a painting on the largest scale we’ve done – a sheet of thick paper around 14 X 20. In class we created a smaller thumbnail version by cutting out images from magazines. We created this collage keeping in mind the lessons from our previous classes: considering our use of color, unity, focal planes and perspective, composition, eventual brush strokes. We’re free to make changes in the final painting, of course, but it was helpful to be able to play around with the placement of objects before actually painting them. My original idea didn’t work at all once I had it down on paper, but since it was just the thumbnail planning stage, I could move my collage pieces around until I had something that worked.
I’ll have to snap some pics of the thumbnail plus what I’ve got so far on the big painting. I haven’t finished it yet, but I think some shots along the way would be interesting too. I’ll keep you posted!