kcp – Artblog

My white philadelphus flower painting “Jasmin des Poètes”  will be on exhibit in Montreal for “Concours-Gala International des Arts visuels Son et Lumière” organized by the “Cercle des Artistes Peintres et Sculpteurs du Québec” (CAPSQ) from October 29th to November 1st – See my website for more details.

As you may have read in a previous article, I started to give painting lessons at a near-by community centre. These painting classes are meant for each participant to share and explore their creative potential. My job there is to assist each of them individually in the creation of an artistic painting.

Fleurs et Fruits by Henri Fantin-Latour (1865)

It is the first time that painting classes are held at that community centre and it is the first time that I’m giving painting lessons – so I’m learning along the way, too – and it turns-out that I’ve got this small class made-of complete beginners. It doesn’t make my task very easy but it’s fun nonetheless.

Painting consists of exploration and careful planning. I’ve observed that beginners seem to lack holistic, or “big picture” thinking, so to speak. In other words, they are painting in the now without foreseeing what they are going to do next. Of course, it’s difficult to do so when one doesn’t have any idea of what can be done with oil paint and what different approaches can be used – I’ve got to give them something to work with – so that prompted me to get started on new painting projects, which I’m going to use as examples for my students.

There are many approaches that one can use, the most obvious one being “Alla prima”  or direct painting which hence the name, consists of directly applying the paint onto the canvas without much planning. More spontaneous and intuitive, this method works well when first learning to paint but the more approaches one knows, the more equipped he is to get the results he hopes for and be satisfied with his creation.

Dry brush technique on coloured ground:
I thought my students the use of coloured grounds already but what good is that without examples of what it can be used for? Henri Fantin-Latour, one of my favourite impressionist painters often used coloured grounds as a background for his still life paintings. Traditionally, burnt umber, yellow ochre or otherwise “earth” colours were often used for ground colours but other colours can be used.

In this example I first applied a turquoise ground colour. Once the ground was dry, I transferred my sketch onto it and then I applied with a hog bristle brush some dark brownish kaki I made, using the dry brush technique. This method consists of brushing a small amount of paint onto the canvas. The rough texture of the canvas lets some of the ground colour show through. Where you want darker values, simply go over adding more paint as many times as needed to achieve the desired value.

So far this painting has only two colours (turquoise and dark brown-kaki) and already the painting makes sense and serve as a good starting point. That way, I know more where I’m going.

I’m so thrilled! This September I’m starting to give oil painting classes in a near-by community centre. I wanted to get a job like this for a long time. I been teaching cartoon illustration to kids in various community centres in the last few years, in hopes to make myself known and work my way up but I’ve found that it doesn’t quite work that way. Most centres that have painting classes serve a clientele that can afford them and the materials. Also, often the painting teachers at those centres have been there for a long time and aren’t likely to quit… I don’t blame them ;)

So I kept sending resumes until luck finally struck, when this community centre in my neighbourhood called me up. They didn’t have a painting/Art teacher and they were looking for one, and get this: they’re buying all the materials, brushes, paint tubes, easels… you name it! I was blown away but it’s a really great thing. You see, there’s lots of poverty in this neighbourhood and for a lot of people it is unthinkable that they can afford the materials plus the cost of the painting lessons. So this community centre buys the materials and offers classes at a reasonable cost. And, it gets even better; their philosophy is to never refuse someone who wish to participate to an activity because he can’t afford it. They’ll work something out instead.

That is so fantastic I think! Painting is such a beautiful discipline and it wouldn’t be fair to deprive people of it just because they are poor. It isn’t just a creative discipline, it is also an opportunity for people to go out, meet others, share and explore together, and not to forget relaxation and other “therapeutic” benefits of painting.

I want to give my students the choice of working from photos, from model or from imagination, so I been preparing, gathering photos, pictures of Great Master’s paintings, old illustration books and props to bring over there to make still lives. Anyway, I’m really, really excited and looking forward to start teaching my first painting class in a couple of weeks.

There’s a French nursery rhyme that goes: “La peinture à l’huile c’est bien difficile, mais c’est bien plus beau que la peinture à l’eau.” – This translates to: Oil painting is very difficult, but it is much prettier than water paint – In which case “water paint” could be interpreted as watercolours or again, water soluble paint, like acrylic.

I don’t know how much this nursery rhyme has contributed to the belief that oil painting is hard but there sure seem to be a lot of people that think so – I met countless of acrylic painters that say that they can’t do oils to save their lives – Well if you are one of those folks, it might interest you to know that I can’t paint in acrylic to save my life –I bet you didn’t suspect me to say that but there, I said it.

So is oil more difficult than acrylic, really? I think it is more a matter of personality. I find that acrylic dries too fast – Yes I know, there’s some medium you can mix with acrylic paint to slow down its drying process but that still dries too fast for my tastes – You see, I like to play with the paint, mix the colours on the canvas. I’m quite an Introvert type of person, my best virtues are patience and persistence, and according to some cognitive tests I undergone a couple years ago, it does indeed seem that my brain is strongly wired to “favour precision over rapidity of execution”.

I used to think that people that don’t have the patience to sit still and do only one thing for several hours non stop until it’s completed, don’t have what it takes to do a decent painting or drawing – But that has changed when I met Guy, the painting teacher at one of the community centre where I teach drawing classes. Guy is an Extrovert, very out going, generous and expressive person – Guy teaches both acrylic and oils but says he prefers acrylics because he doesn’t like waiting 3 or 4 days for the paint to dry. He says: “Things have got to get going with me, continuously.”

He also told me that sometimes his oil students are making him impatient because they spend a long time painting their sky, chitchatting with each other, then get up, grab a cup of coffee, chitchat some more, then get back into class and continue working slowly on their skies – Guy said: “That takes forever and ever, my gosh it’s driving me crazy!” – That made me chuckle – I realized that his oil students must alienate him just as much as those of my students that hurry to complete their drawings alienate me.

Which medium is better suited for you? If you like to work slowly, focussing on one thing at a time, if you like to experiment, play with colours on the canvas and don’t mind waiting a long time before seeing some results, oil may just be the perfect medium for you – On the other hand, action going, multi tasking, spontaneous types will very much prefer acrylics – This said however, it doesn’t solve the problem of beginner painters who have not yet gained the experience and confidence in their skill to work fast – Because acrylic paint dries fast, beginners might find it disabling. So please, do yourself a favour and give oils a chance.

Today I have completed “les Patineurs” – I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow and put it up here later – I’m not really happy with it but since it was an experiment I guess that it’s not bad. I guess also that I could have continued working on it for a little while longer but given that I’m unfamiliar with the technique and style, I was afraid of making it worst. For instance I thought of adding a little bit of shade on the ice under the skaters with glazing – I tried but it just looked awful and so I removed it right away – I believe that there comes a time when you must say it’s enough and stop adding to it or else you just end up making yourself go crazy and frustrated – I added a little bit of yellow ochre to enhance some of the details in the buildings and a little bit on the skaters too and that’s it; that’s as far as I’ll go.

What I really like though are the skaters in the far back. Just a few brush strokes is plenty to render their silhouettes – I been working with pictures such as these (above & below) and selected skaters that I thought were the most representative of the different skaters typically found on a skating rink; from the novice girl, the young couple holding hands, the parents teaching their little one leaning on a blue construction cone, this mischievous looking little boy with the yellow toque to the young boy speeding on ice with ease like he thinks he is Maurice Richard (More picture later)

 Although not on the painting, I am on the pictures (see cameo) – I’m the one with the sky blue toque and sunglasses – The person next to me is my friend Maryse; She also used to play tenor in one of my saxophone quartet which unfortunately ceased to exist about a year ago.