Tuesday’s class was loosely based on the concept of Picasso’s blue paintings. I started out showing a brief slideshow with some of his work from that period, to give an idea of how one color can create a whole painting. They all agreed that the blue shade created a sad atmosphere, and we talked about ‘feeling blue’, and ‘blues’ music... They were given a palette with as many different blues as I had been able to find in my studio, as well as all the white they needed. They seemed surprised how different the colors looked next to each other. Some turned out to have a green shade, some seemed almost purple when you added white. One student looked really surprised and said: “I thought there was just one blue!”
I sensed that they had a lot of fun using just one color for a whole piece, they experimented with a light background and then using a darker shade of blue as an outline. Some of the students painted freely from their mind, others looked around the room for items to look at and paint. The drawing on this page, of the two old women, was actually inspired from one of my favorite clay sculptures, made by a local artist where I grew up. As always I was excited and surprised to see how differently they approached the idea, and how different the results came out.
Next week is illustration - a H. C. Anderson tale with lots of good visual stories, ready to be put onto paper...
