Jody’s Oil Painting Adventure Continues…
Hello Blog Readers and Friends!
How is everyone on this eve of Summer Solstice? I hope you take time to reflect on the beauty of the world and all the love we share. Greetings from my aunt Sandy Sires and uncle Ted Sires from the Olympic Peninsula… Sandy is my mother’s sister… I loved our recent family reunion last Sunday!
Jody Bergsma with her aunt and uncle.
I am loving learning something new at every session in my new class. This is my teacher Barbara Sternburger at the beginning of her lecture on abstract painting last night.
She asked us to paint large and to try painting against the wall to create a firm backing for our canvas… we will stretch them later.
I prepared several small 4″ by 5″ sketches with colored pencil as a reference for the painting.
Barbara suggested we paint:
Light to dark
Back to Front
Large to small
And…
Thin to thick.
I started with the large light washes…
The Pallette is not so different from watercolor. You place your colors in a logical color sequence. We are using OMS (Odorless Mineral Spirits) and Liquin for our “water” (wetting and thining medium).
It took about two hours to place all the first stage colors on the canvas… note the small original sketch above the oil painting.
We then put our paintings aside for a new assignment… in the moment interactive Expressionism!
These are the beginning underlying energy marks.
All of us in the class did this piece together as an exercise in painting expressive marks without ego. This is incredibly different than anything I have ever done, very fun, and very freeing! Here is our class…Jessi Bergsma, Barbara Ryan, Laura and Jody. WE LOVED THIS EXERCISE! We did not know we had this in ourselves.
Jessi, Barbara, Laura & Jody
This is our teachers paint cart. To me this was like a big toy just waiting to be played with!
Trying something totally new is always scary to start… But the rewards for stretching yourself are huge. You feel the exhilaration of new adventure and new life… I hope all of you will take on a new project this year and find the same spark of joy.
My dear friend Anne Marie from Brambleberry Soap and I wish you a very happy Summer Solstice!
Jody & Anne Marie last Tuesday night at the Symphony Charity Dinner... complete with opera singers!
You can check out wonderful and exciting creations with soap at Anne Marie’s website…
Let the sun shine in!
Jody
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