Past unpublished post #3

2.15.12

 lovely grass orchid

strong leaves delicate flower

pretty in color

This week we learned, or were reminded, about how to paint a grass orchid. The grass or spring orchid is my favorite subject to paint.

Sharon started the class, as is her way, by reading a haiku about winter to set the mood. She then began to teach the new students the basics of creating bamboo leaves. I had shown up earlier before class to practice my bamboo leaves.  I am still working on removing the chicken feet from the leaves, so I watched her demonstrate, yet again. Seeing that I had improved the shape of the leaves, Sharon lent me a painting of hers and recommended that I copy it for practice. The painting showed the placement of leaves, and included numbers showing which leaf to paint at what time.  It was very helpful. I practiced with bamboo for about a half hour and by copying hers, was able to make some improvement in my bamboo. I have included some before and after photos below.

Before:

After:

After I had worked on the bamboo for a while, I decided to change over to my favorite subject: the spring orchid.  I painted several of these, each time trying to vary my grass and the size of the flower. Soon after I began working on my spring orchids, Sharon asked the class if anyone wanted to learn how to paint with colors. I raised my hand excitedly, and exclaimed, "I want to learn how to have fun with color!"  I realized after I said it that I sounded like a high school student, but I was so excited that I could not contain myself. =)

Sharon demonstrated how to put several colors on to the brush at one time, and how doing so automatically layers the colors onto the paper. As the paints dry, the variations in colors emerge and provide depth, energy and drama to the subject.

I took this newly learned knowledge back to my work area and proceeded to try it out on both bamboo, (see the results above) and spring orchid. See below:

We ended class by sharing our favorite piece. I chose the above subject.  I like the shape of the petals and the colors of the leaves.  In looking at the other student's paintings, I realized that I needed to work on my grass to create variation in the strokes. Doing so would make it look like the grass is twisted or we are looking at it from the side and the leaves are not all facing the same way.