Art projects for art classes and paintings for a show: they are very different by nature, subject and size. Time is of essence since one can attend only that many art classes usually (I always hope they’d come back for more!) and an art class needs to be of certain length. After holding extremely many of them, I’ve stayed with roughly two academic hours or 1.5 hours. There is a reason for that. The attention span can stretch only that long, and to create something good, we absolutely need to be attentive, focused and alert.
For show art projects, I’d definitely choose a much larger canvas size, as well as maybe more tricky, more complex and more intriguing subject which my students who can be almost or practically beginners would not be able to paint. The painting process itself is not the same also: I work on the entire painting and not with a few colors or on a few areas. My attention goes to any spot which requires it and I obviously do not follow special steps, but rather my idea and its implementation. All attached images are 20 x 116 in or 51 x 41 cm in size.
Over time, one learns how to apply paint automatically, how to clean brush automatically and very frequently, as well as how not to skip the messy stage of acrylic painting which can look quite horrible at times. Brushstroke is one of the most important parts of the painting process. When somebody starts out, they just don’t have it yet. If you still remember how you learned to write manually, you know that the hand cannot follow what the brain tells it to. The other sensitive issue is that if you have experience, you never start acrylic painting with the final color and layer. You build color, build your subject, all shapes and color transitions starting with dark and moving up. Our art projects allow practicing all of that.
To cheat the visual perception easier, as well as to have at least one good base layer on what to build the rest on, I do ask my students using pre-painted canvas only. Yet, still people are so afraid of dark colors that the pre-painted canvas is way too light. Without strong base, there is nothing much of a painting. We can all move paint around, even to the point when it becomes muddy brown-grey, but to get on that canvas some impression and some mood, takes much more than that.
Since everybody paints abstracts and there’s no clear understanding what’s a good abstract and what’s just a colored canvas, I stick to my personalized realism. It definitely allows implementing my own features and apply something which others do not. Therefore, my art projects include some of realistic features. While having texture layer on canvas attracts lots of attention let’s say at a show, it can look not good on photos because the high spots catch more light which doesn’t always correspond to light areas on the painting.
The attached images were initially painted between 10-5 years ago. The subject of these art projects is what we liked back then: barns, roads, fall colors, something not too complex, but bright and vivid. The current acrylic class deals with slightly more sophisticated acrylic art projects. We’ve just had one class by now and the start looks promising. The group is tiny as in COVID era, so no problem treating everyone very individually. They are still very good paintings, the ones which took the first brushstroke long time ago, and I will hang them in the studio room where I can put art on the wall because I cannot do that everywhere. Well, I rent, and that comes with requirements.
Enjoy! What better time to immerse oneself in color than now?
So beautiful and full of life!
Thank you very much Cindy!
As it seems, such painting subjects remain as attractive as so many years ago.
I have website issues, something with Jetpack, I cannot comment or like any other blogs at the moment. I will visit your beautiful picture site at some time when I have fixed my issues.
Have a good week!
Hi!
I remember when similar paintings were all the rage. Yours are very cheerful!
I remember a lot of the colors for the interior of homes was more toward yellows, greens and reds, too!
Blessings~
Thanks!
When people want to learn painting, many feel like they want to paint something recognizable and more or less real. My students have always loved barns, and I have accumulated the demo paintings which I always do along with students while demonstrating how to create them.
They do look great on their own and in a small bunch, colors work well together.
I just discontinued the group classes. I believed that after the long lockdown people would want to have some real interaction again, but, apparently not here in Ajax, Ontario. So, I’m just leaving the private classes for now. So, nothing much happening.
It’s been two extremely tough and empty years, and so far I haven’t gotten back to anything good or normal yet. Taking into account the local developments here, I don’t see any improvement soon. I intend to get better equipment maybe in spring, but we will see. My devices are not in line with the current online trends and I am pretty much limited to the old model of teaching or selling art which doesn’t work at all. The last painting I sold, was 3 years ago, and that’s about it. After the pandemic started, it all stopped for me here completely with all complete lockdowns and very tough restrictions.
Well, I’m not that young also, the energy reserves deplete swiftly.
I will stop by at your site when I have some time. Right now, I have the chores to do and clean up the garden a bit and that probably will take most part of the day.
Stay well and blessings to you! Have a good weekend!
I am so sorry you have had a harder time selling your paintings since the pandemic. It has been so hard for so many people.
Have a wonderfully blessed week!
Well, it’s not that it was ever easy, but still. After I moved out of Whitby and moved 2 times from one place to another in Ajax in the last 3 years, I practically lost everybody who was interested in either classes or byuing art. I have some online presence, but compared to the huge outlets who can offer free shipping, it’s like nothing. I have to be realistic, all shows were cancelled, they aren’t even back yet. There are too many places which sell prints, so the space for original art sales has shrank also. We were renting a commercially zoned property before, now, it’s just a very expensive residential renting place. So, to get somebody to walk in, I have to invite them personally and that doesn’t often result in them coming in anyway.
I mentioned that sometimes before, the artists hwho are doing better online during these times, all have filiming crews, editors, website managers, etc. I know some of them personally, so I know how they’ve moved it up.
Let’s not forget the medical issues and age and decreasing motivation after many years of trying to make something out of this without much results. I’m not what I was even 20 years ago. If I have a choice between torturing myself just because of getting one sale and placing 50 ads for that and simply laying down and reading a book, I will take the latter.
It’s so that one person is no longer capable of performing all the tasks which come with being visible on the internet and dealing with sales, advertising, putting up social media posts and responding to comments, marketing, video-taping and editing, punlishing, creating content, painting more art and also doing everything that keeping a big house clean involves, shopping, laundery, cooking and garden. That’s a lot even for a person who is in good health and has no other tasks like earning side-income from medical translations.
I just had a private class, I have to go out to keep cleaning up the garden.
We are in a creazy and exhausting reality and, most often, there is nothing to show for all heavy work.
Have a good afternoon!
I love your paintings, Inese. They are so full of life, such energy. The rich, vibrant colours are stunning. You are so talented and obviously a good teacher too. Bless you.
Thank you very much!
I really needed some boost of good energy!
I certainly appreciate your nice comment and I’m glad you like my art.
very lovely pictures
what happened to your other blog?
do you still have it?
Thanks very much!
I’ve been busy because it was getting cold, lots of work and I cancelled group classes, but got a few students for private classes. Every class takes a lot of preparation, sometimes setting up what I teach to paint. I also had very little time to respond to comments and likes and so forth. I’m working on ads right now, very time-consuming process. It’s dark for the most part of the day and I have difficult times getting any pictures.
Basically, I’ve been posting about once a month in the other blog, but nothing happened to it. Not enough time for everything, unfortunately.
https://inesepogalifeschool.com/
I hope you’re doing fine!
thanks, checked out the other blog as well, seems you really have dome some very impressive gardening
were you also able to preserve some of the veggies for later?
Thanks! I did very little, I practically couldn’t do everything. In the fall, especially late fall, I also felt very tired. As soon as the class was over, I just dealt with my own paintings and household and that’s about it.
Everything was growing great. We simply had a very bad July, that’s why plants were a bit late.