I've started
a new painting class, taught by Monica Satherthwaite at the San Lorenzo
Adult School. It's turning out to be a good class. Monica has a
different approach than Ron's class. Instead of having everyone paint
the same subject by following the teacher's demonstration step by step,
she encourages the students to find their own subjects. While much of the class are painting whatever they want, she works with
small groups demonstrating various techniques. Every class begins with a half hour
of quick study, a silent time when everyone does a quick sketch or
painting, usually of some kind of still life. Like my previous class, it
is a nice group of mostly older people, many of whom have been there for
years.
There are many aspects of Monica's approach that differ from Ron's. One is that she asks us to work with a limited palette which she specifies as follows: Scarlet Lake, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Thalo Green, Thalo Blue, Ultramarine, and Violet. It is taking me a while to get used to working without some of the colors that I used to depend on, and learning how to mix substitutes for them. After setting up a new palette with these colors and a bit of practice, I decided to see what I could do with this scene from a photo that Maureen took a couple of years ago at the place where we often stay at Mammoth Lakes. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.
One day a few weeks ago I went for a walk in the bayshore marshes just south of the San Mateo Bridge approach. There were not as many shore birds as I expected, but I did get some photos of an egret, and decided to paint it in my class.
On another day in class I started working on a scene with Maureen riding Zim on the Goldenrod Trail near the barn where our horses live. I wanted to show the light coming through the trees, and I think I got some of it at least.
