m i s t y . p i l g r i m . f i n e . a r t

College painting has assignments that we do.  At first, I was concerned about what seemed to be a lack of objective. But then I finally figured out, maybe I don't need to know what the objective is. just paint. I've learned how to build canvas stretcher bars and stretch my own canvas, which  my first assignment  is being painted on. The second assignment is to mix 100 colors on paper that I gessoed.  I didn't know you could gesso paper and paint on it, so--cool!  I couldn't be less interested in this assignment, but I have learned a lot about certain pigments, namely how freaking strong they are, like viridian, and some of the reds. The 3rd assignment involves building a cradled board and either copying a famous painting, or copying a famous painter's  style.   I chose Monet.  Because I thought it would be "easy".  :-( To explain my subject I would need to tell you that my husband is a gardener. He loves it.  He loves colo...

The final painting So, I started College Painting I.  It is a requirement in nearly every drawing or painting class that at some point you create a composition out of an assemblage of random art objects and render it.  So here we are. Assignment 1: Paint a still life from a set up in the room, in black and white and shades of grey.  Using Titanium White and Ivory Black.  I cheated a little - I'm sure earlier art students had to figure out the values in gray by eye-balling the set up, but not me.  I have an iPhone.  So, I angled the set up that I wanted, and took a picture, using the phone to change it to b&w. It turns out that there is another good reason to take a picture, that being that people are just RUDE.  Within an hour of sketching out my picture, people had started coming up and moving things, adding things, taking other things away.  Before the end of class, it looked like this.   And an hour later, ...

I took private lessons this past spring from a local artist, Tom Blazier.  I envied so the taboret that he had in his studio, and so I set about getting one for myself.  After looking at some of the fancy ones online ($$$) I started googling "cabinets with drawers" and the like. Finally, I found this  on Amazon  and I couldn't be more pleased.  You have to assemble itself but it's totally worth it, and not difficult at all.  Solid wood. These are nice flat drawers that have paints in some, brushes in others, and a spare palette. ...