Painting with Oregon Art Supply

Korrin B.

October 30, 2010 - 5:00 PM

At the end of last term, I had to face the sad reality that if I wanted to graduate in the spring of 2011 without completely stressing myself out with 21 credit terms, I had to drop my recently added art minor. As much as I had wanted it, I realized that there was just no way to pull off an entire minor in one year. Letting go of my hope for an art minor was disappointing, but it also took a lot of stress off of myself. This was good as well because I was starting to feel like the stress wasn't really helping my art in the way that I was hoping the minor would. However, determined to continue to practice and love art, I looked for some other outlets. For the past year, I have been on Oregon Art Supply's email list and remembered that they send out a monthly email about classes they were doing. I decided that this would be my outlet. This would be a stress-free and fun way to continue to do and enjoy art despite dropping my minor.

Luckily, one of the October classes they were offering was the one that I had always looked at longingly - Introduction to Acrylic Painting. When at home doing my own art, I often paint with acrylics, but I have not had too much formal instruction on them. I thought this class would be a nice way to learn some more of the techniques, as well as have an excuse to set aside three hours each Saturday to paint.

This weekend was my final class and I am so happy that I decided to do it. I learned quite a lot from a very wonderful teacher. She was supportive and great at answering questions and taking new concepts step by step. I think one of the most important things I learned from the class was how to get back to just enjoying painting and not worrying so much about details, but just being free and having fun with it.

Our first class, we learned about different kinds of brushes and different times we might want to use them. I got the chance to fall in love with a rounded brush type that I had never used before. We also talked about mixing colors and complimentary colors and ended the class by painting something just using two complimentary colors.

Our second class focused more on the consistency of our paints and how to change them to get different kinds of covers with them by adding things like glosses or water. We also talked about how to compose a painting and how to sketch it in paint. We did a still life painting in this class and I remember being quite pleased with the way that my colors turned out. Our "homework" for the class was to try another still life only this time on canvas board instead of acrylic paper. It was interesting doing this activity at home and realizing how much more the paper soaks up the paint than the canvas board does.

The homework prepared us for our third and final class in which we composed and painted a scene on a studio canvas. Before doing so however, we talked about different mediums that could be added to the paint to create texture. These were a lot of fun to play with and created textures that looked sandy or bumpy or thick. I would definitely like to explore some more with them on my own. We also talked about how to do implied details where not everything is extremely detailed, but certain details help the viewer's eye fill in the rest. I tried this technique in the scene I ended up painting on my studio canvas and I think it went pretty well.

Overall, I am happy with my decision to drop my art minor, but to continue to pursue art on my own. I noticed every time I was in class how happy and calm it made me feel. While I paint, I just don't have to think about anything else and that is quite nice. I looked at Oregon Art Supply's classes for the next few months and I am thinking of possibly taking screen-printing or marbling. I am waiting for my teacher to have her intermediate acrylic painting class now!