Painting at Bubby's

Some of the Grands are here today.  What could be more fun than an impromptu art class?

In the past, I've given the kids colored pencils or water colors.  What is really nice to use are the Derwent water color pencils - particularly the inktense pencils.  The effect of watercolor without the mess.  Even the little ones love it - Bubby draws the picture and they use water to make it pop.

But today, I wanted the kids to feel very special using my regular paints.  My art instructor is very health conscious and only uses water soluble oil paints, so, today I thought we'd use some of the paint, but treat it like water colors.

I took some red, blue, green and yellow and put little dabs on a paper plate for each of them.  I gave each a canvas board to paint on.  I felt the lesson would go better if we all painted the same thing. I hoped the kids might learn a bit about blending, color theory, and possibly brush strokes. Well, that worked for Faigy (3rd grade), but not for Zehava (1st grade).

i think they both did a great job on their paintings!

This is Zehava's

This is Faigy's

and this one is mine.

Fleisheker

I trolled the internet for inspiration for my second painting and came across a wonderful artist, Itchak Fleisheker.  Some examples of his work below.

When we were in Israel this past April, we popped into the Safrai gallery to look around and I was thrilled to be able to see one of his actual paintings.  The colors and the imagery are beautiful.

I chose one of his paintings to try and duplicate.  I had to redo the sky 7 times to get anything near to his.  My version doesn't have nearly the depth of his color or the feel of his brushstrokes, and the perspective is clearly off.  Be that as it may, I'm still rather pleased with my attempt, and the results are still look nice hanging on the wall.  I think not a bad attempt for a second painting.

The original

My copy

First Painting

I work in New York where the word "rush" takes on new meaning.  And I'm a technology project manager working on ridiculous deadlines.

So, my first day of class, I treated the painting like a project - with a deadline.  I didn't relax and was just a stressed when I left as when I came.  It took a few sessions for me to just get lost in the colors, the shapes, and the brushstrokes and to realize that there are no deadlines.

I was afraid to paint anything with people, anything with detail, anything "hard".  I found a painting in a magazine with a sky that I thought might not be too difficult.  I added a horizon and foreground from another picture.  I don't know who the original artist is, unfortunately.

Here's my first picture:

The beginning

I live in the black and white world of Corporate America; my creative outlets limited to designing system flows or user screens to access data. A few years ago, my friend told me about an art class for high schoolers she had joined and suggested I join her to bring up the median age of the class.  After two years, I thought it might be interesting to chronicle my journey to color and form as I find my artistic style. So Grandma Moses, move over, another Grandma is trying to join your ranks.