Wednesday 10 December 2008

More artwork

I think I'm getting the 'hang' of this now! I attempted this scene - taken from my beginners watercolour book, (Alwyn Crawshaw, Collins Press). I did it in a couple of hours, taking a break midway to make a cup of tea while the mountains and sky dried. That was when Pebble decided to walk across it. His paw prints can still be seen despite my repair work.

I took it into Art class yesterday evening to lots of applause from classmates, however, the teacher thought it looked a bit like 'paint by numbers'.

During the evening I managed two more snow scenes, trying not to make them look as though they were 'paint by numbers', while the teacher went in and out of the classroom more times than a fiddler's elbow. At the end of the session she handed us a piece of A5 pink paper to write down our thoughts on the course. She also told us that the continuation course in January would be another Beginners' course and that she would show us a few more techniques while going through the whole syllabus again. Others were writing out their cheques while I looked on incredulously. Am I the only one to think that this was another College attempt to get 'bums on seats', never mind the level of students?

Before leaving the class for good, I crammed as much onto my small 'course evaluation' piece of paper as was possible, trying to be constructive rather than destructive. To think I used to be the Training Evaluator for a large organisation, designing methodologies for evaluation, review and design of courses! It all seems such a long time ago now, and these recent experiences have made me feel as though I have never existed.

Despite the pleas of my art colleagues, I think I shall pass on signing up for January. I shall look around for another Art class with hopefully, a teacher that has a bit more nouse and who can steer me away from 'paint by numbers'!

More paintings to follow...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that picture just leapt out of the page it me - I love the tones of the colours ! Please do put in more paintings!

Nicola

Hogdayafternoon said...

Brilliant Jennyb,

Love the paw shadows after the birds! We love the paintings.

Puddock said...

I agree with Hogday - I think the pawprints add to the painting - makes it unique!

I don't think it matters whether you copied it from a book - you are learning the techniques and that's all that matters.

I also think you are quite right to resist basically paying twice to do the same course, although on the other hand if you'll have friends there...

Anyway, keep on going with the artwork - it's lovely!