Each subject is a lesson in either composition, color, perspective, techniques or materials.
The ability to teach, answer questions, and paint at the same time presents unique challenges, but the reward is that I get to paint in every class. Reflecting back on the past year, I realize I did over 100 demonstraton paintings -some turned out well -and some not so good. Hopefully though, each one imparted something helpful to the students -a better undersanding of how to begin a painting, through to a more confident, satisfying completion of a painting.
I am posting a few here that may help you as you go forward in this new year. In the following four examples, you can see the fundamental steps: the original photograph, the adustments to the photograph, the pattern of the composition and step 1, 2 and the final. In some cases, a few additional steps are added as finishing touches.
Happy painting in 2017!