mbwilsonart

Please join me for the 58th Annual Waltham Open Studios!

https://www.walthamopenstudios.org/

A funny thing happened after that flurry of exciting new paintings that I wrote about in the previous post. In that post I was wondering if they were heralding a change in style or were just “one-off” paintings.

I tried to recreate the new style, and they were rather something of a disaster. What I’m thinking now is that with the first ones I was unhappy with the paintings I’d been working on, and in a frenzy motivated by desperation and boredom I let go of what expectations I had for the painting and became a conduit. Guide by instinct the paintings flowed right through me. Three times within two days. The fourth was a consequence of momentum, but each time I got a painting that I was happy with.

The somewhat logical conclusion, then, is that I first need to do a painting that I get frustrated with. In pursuit of that I’ve only had a chance to start a couple paintings since then, but which, unfortunately for these circumstances are going well and I’m not frustrated or bored. Wish me luck, whatever that may be.

I will also be teaching a few classes at the New Art Centerin Newton. There will be two Zoom classes: beginning painting on Monday morning and Painting Intensive on Friday morning. Although the title for Monday’s class is “Foundations for Beginners” painters of all levels are welcome. The same is true for the Friday Intensive, all levels of experience are welcome. The class assignments will be structured so that there will be something challenging that’s applicable to multiple levels.

There will also be a workshop on Saturday, July 27th: Learning to Draw, and a workshop on Saturday, Aug 3rd: “Landscape Painting in the Park” .

You can find more information and register for these classes and workshops at https:newartcenter.org/

I gave a class assignment this week to paint this:

So I then did this:

And this:

I cut out the shapes in order to see them as themselves, independent of the rest of the image. Especially the leaves, which are easily put into a background space thinking they are they only there in service to the flower. By separating out the flower I wanted the students to see the leaves as a distinct part of the image. Their shapes, the way they create space/depth as they overlap, and the varieties of green stand out better without the flower.

The flower dominates the image, mostly because it is so red against all the green, but also subject-wise. We look at the flower first

I started by asking the students to begin with the leaves without the flower. The interesting thing to me was how in those paintings the flower really looked pasted on, ala Andy Warhol. I think of the assignment as a success because it did force the painters to look harder at the green leaves than they might have otherwise.