The second day of class with the homeschoolers was full of interesting moments like the one above. Turns out the camera makes Rachel want to eat paint as badly as it makes me want to stick out my tongue and make silly faces! I also found out that the boys in the class would prefer to keep a very tidy work area and clean hands. I must have many more rags and paper towels on hand than I anticipated. The girls seem to like getting into the paint goo as much as I do and both used their hands quite a bit as they worked. Today we continued our work on color. I gave them some additional bits of info to relate it to their other studies. Most interesting perhaps is that Isaac Newton invented the color wheel. We did a quick review of some color terms, introduced the terms hue, tint, and shade and talked a little about the computer to printer issue and CMYK versus RGB, just a enough to capture the attention of any future geeks who may be in the group.
Using quinacridone red, pthalocyanine blue, and cadmium light yellow hue, the students worked with a palette knife to create color mixes on their paper plate palettes. They created charts to show the three levels and their relationships. They then used some titanium white paint to create tints and explore the different tinting strengths of the colors. A couple expressed a desire for black paint and we looked at the paintings I have in my studio as examples of the relativity of value and how it relates to the fact that I have no paintings where I used black paint. Right about this time, I said that I wished the FedEx guy would show up (with their new paint pads). Within two seconds he was standing in the doorway saying he had left our package up at the house! That’s how things work in life and in art. What you focus on is what you get.
The class ended after everyone made a value chart with a pencil and used it to render a ball and its shadow. I talked to them about the importance of learning how to look at the way light falls on objects and emphasized that looking is the largest part of painting. The students were asked to take notice of the way an object is lit, perhaps the apple on the counter, the mug on the table, and to consider the direction of the light source and to look for the highlights and the shadows. Those with digital cameras may like to take pictures of simple objects with well defined lighting.
Next week, we will miss two of our students, and in the interest of moving ahead as a group, will suspend the formal lessons and have a day of painting to music. We may have an additional student or two join us for the fun. I’ll post a photo of the table of leftover paints later. It got quite a lot of color today and is turning out to be the highlight of our classes.
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