2nd Year Undergraduate Painting Class:

I am using this period at the beginning of the New Year to look back at the end of the last, and to put some of the activities that I did last term into the content of my new blog. One such activity could be the opportunity I took to go along to Dr June Forster’s undergraduate, second year painting class. Being able to sit in on undergraduate classes has been one of the really nice things about being an Masters student and also one way in which the School of Art is very supportive (I cannot imagine that this happens at every institution – I do not recall it occurring when I was an undergraduate). Provided that you are open and willing to learn and I try not impact on the class too much; then I find that everyone is very welcoming, supportive and that you can really get involved with the activities.

I cannot attend every session but I managed to sit in on three of June’s painting classes, two practicals and one theory on materials and one of Prof. John Harvey’s lecturers on ‘board preparation’. I particularly enjoyed the practical sessions and I only wish that I could have attended more of them. Below are some of my efforts.

First are two near identical paintings of the same subject matter on different coloured grounds, one is painted over a warm colour, the other over a cold colour. There are some good points about the paint application, but not too many and I definitely got caught in the trap of narrow thinking. I was obsessed at the time with making both paintings identical, which of course they did not have to be and I also did not use the coloured ground to its best advantage; I could have use this to create two very different takes on the same subject. As it was, because these paintings were bright and on boards I think I only need another two the same to make some good dinner table place mats – not good!

If there was one thing I learnt from these classes, one thing that stuck in my head, it was when June said to remember that ‘each painting that we do is actually about our next painting’ – what are we learning right now and how are we going to make it better next time?

In my case, after painting the fruit still life, I learnt to relax my painting. My next painting, the following week, was a still life of some sticks in an iron fire bucket. I remembered how the previous week I had over focused and tried to replicate the still life and both paintings meticulously and so I stood back further, used a pallet knife and tried to remain relaxed. I think this painting is much more successful.

A bucket with sticks.
Acrylic On Board.
30x43cm