Week 1 Assignments

Week 1 Assignments. Paint a shiny and dull object in the same painting.

Message from Kat -- The first thing I want you to do is to notice how awesome your paintings look when you haven't seen them for a couple hours, and when you see them at a distance-  that's one of the reason BIG strokes can be more effective than tiny ones- you won't see the tiny ones from a distance!

Here's the link to the Painter's Keys, Robert Genn's blog, the Canadian artist I mentioned- it is a bi-weekly blog, and I absolutely love it.  One post a week is from the archives of Robert's writings, and one post is from his artist daughter Sara~  really great stuff!  I suggest you subscribe to it so you'll get it in your in-box!  the SUBSCRIBE button is on the menu bar for the site, as far as I can see!

And your HOMEWORK is to paint 4 (or MORE) paintings~  1 is of something shiny combined with something soft- an attempt to explore textures~

1 is of a fruit or vegetable, similar to what we did today, and your other 2 paintings can be another version of these first two-  or of anything else at all! [end of message]

I'm posting these in reverse order. Last to first.

Painting 4. Yep, did the koi in a tank. Did it in a quick 45 min. Was it the Kendrick Lamar music???? I also took off my glasses to see the colors and shapes and not the detail. Took some liberties with the colors. I like the action. Even now as I look back and paining 1, 2, and 3, they seem dull and flat. I think the assignment was good for mixing colors and making shiny and dull objects and I picked "still" life instead of hungry fish in water. I found my joy with this painting.

I like the fish and will be sad to see them go in May. I guess it will be just me that has to harvest? Maybe Jay? Marie will be gone but maybe she'll come back for harvest. Maybe the koi will find good homes. Maybe our favorite perch will find a new lab to live in.

The koi in the fish tank in the aquaponics lab. They were so excited to see me because they thought I was going to feed them. I was thinking maybe of painting the tilapia but they would have jumped out of the tank if I looked at them too long. Would like to do the perch but they are more shy and stay deeper.

Painting 4. Didn't do it yet. I'm bored with the object/vegetable theme. Will take my painting pad and pencil to work tomorrow and sketch out something. A hose and a puddle of water. I don't know. A koi in a tank. Lunch. Then, when Bill is out for his Friday night with friends at the bar I can finish my final assignment so that I don't fail (myself) in my painting class. Also bored with my backgrounds. Might fuss with the Painting 3 background to liven it up (wreck it worse).

When I was over on the East Bank campus to try out office chairs at the ergonomics showroom, I stopped by the bookstore to get some Gopher gear and an Apple gadget and then looked at the arty stuff. Bought myself a woodless pencil and some brushes. Cheap brushes! $2.99 each! Such a fun campus! They have stuff! You can get coffee! And food! St. Paul campus has trees, flowers, and animals.

Painting 3. The endless struggle with the olive greens and terra cotta browns. Plus, getting tired of painting these objects. Look through this and you will see that all my assignment paintings look the same. And I kept eating the olives. The terra cotta pot had more white evaporated solids but I ended up painting over the pot at least once because I couldn't get the solids right. Background is boring. Surface is boring. The paintings are boring.

The real thing.

Painting 2. Wine glass and radish. Looks more like a beet. Painted over the wine a couple of times. Kept thinking of how it would be easier in watercolor but this is a challenge. Adding the glazing liquid helped. More grey background. I think that will come later, being more creative in the background. Kept drinking the wine.

The real thing.

Painting 1. Mug and potato. Mug doesn't look anything like what it really looks like but it does look like a mug. Potato? Unfinished. How to do potato texture. It is dull at least.

The real thing.