Still-life is not so much my thing

While working this week, I had a number of moments of ugh and sweating in the heat of course.  As the papers blew around the room from the breeze, I finally decided to just get started.

I used the "frame" we were given to zoom in on just a piece of one of the still-life set-ups.  The choices were a vase with local flowers and leaves along with a lantern, a bowl of some local fruit from the tree and a table with books on one side and a breakfast scene on the other.  As you can see, I went for the books with the flowers.

I did not like it so much as I was working on it, but at the end of class when we set our easels for all to see and I stepped back from my work, I actually found I liked it.  What do you think?

What is the composition?

Today, we worked on composition. We made some sketches to work from.  I chose a gate downstairs at the Landhuis as well as a beautiful large leaf from a plant and the eye from a metak sculpture in the courtyard.  See my results.  It could use some more light and shadow, but overall I felt a nice composition.

Art in Curacao

There is great place here called Landhuis Bloemhof which has an art gallery on the bottom floor and in the gardens.  It also has a studio space upstairs which is used for all kinds of art classes.  I signed up for Intermediate Acrylic Painting which started this past Saturday.  I have not picked up a paintbrush in quite a while which was one of the big motivators for me taking this class.

It was a lot of fun to paint again.  The group is 9 people, 1 guy and many older women.  The teacher is interesting and makes good helpful comments. He taught in a combination of Dutch and English (for me), but once I get some of the basic Dutch words for art terms I think I will be fine.  With the congnates and the bit of German I know I can get the gist.

This week we did an exercise to paint 9 small paintings in 5 minutes each.  I chose to make a series of a mug which for me is an usual object, but was kind of fun.  Then we painted a big painting from the small ones.  You can see my progress in the photos and I will update each week.

9 Small Ones

Big Painting

End of October

Well I made it through till now.  One month and I will be on my way to Philly for Thanksgiving weekend and my reunion. There have been a lot of interesting events.  I enjoyed the week off in October, but feel like it never happened now. The semester is flying by.  Soon it will be done.  Been hanging out and stayed away from the beach for the 2 weeks post LASIK.  I am enjoying not needing contacts or glasses to see.