Teaching....

Mixing it Up with Mixed Media

I had the opportunity to be teacher for a day with my painting

gang "Pieces of 8."  We do this occasionally to share

new techniques and have a "play date" that encourages work outside our normal m.o.

Believe me, I have a renewed respect for workshop instructors who do

this for a living...it's hard to think, talk, correct, inform and paint all at the same time.

But my students were worthy and just might exceed the abilities of the one

showing them the method!

Here's a recap:

I had prepared masonite boards for everyone with 3 coats of gesso each and sanding between the coats.  I'm not fond of heavy sanding on hardboard as it can eat into the fiber so these were rougher than I usually like.  (Board panels can be made as smooth as glass: lovely to work on!)

We cut shapes from contact paper or masking tape and chose 3 primary colors to

work with.  We glazed and glazed and moved the shapes around and

glazed some more.  It was a lesson in how layering the colors changes the tones you can get from just 3 selections (of red, blue and yellow). 

When everything dries and the contact is peeled off (new lesson learned: contact paper

and hair dryers are not a good combo!) we tackled bringing the shapes forward and

backward using additional paint and graphite.  The pencil marks and the addition

of intentional white acrylic can turn a hodge podge into a focused design.

VOILA!

Kudos to Carmen who took one of my favorite shapes, the pear, and made it into

a lovely mixed media painting. 

It was a fun experience to give a few basic instructions and watch all the different

paintings emerge from the same materials.  I'm a real believer that everytime we play we learn something that will eventually inform an unyet painted masterpiece.

So I'm off to play....err, work!