Demo for High School Student Painters Today

My high school students (juniors & seniors) began their painting week, 2nd quarter...and today, I demonstrated the concepts of blocking in shapes, color and values, and refraining from worrying about what a thing "is"...or its details. Artists have a unique language, seeing shapes, color, values, texture, line...and so forth...

Each year, I am seeing less and less patience on the part of young people to embrace what is thought difficult, as though a sign therefore such is not meant to be...and, seeing less patience. I try thus, to keep my demo's very quick while talking thru it...and this one was about 15-20 minutes start to what you see here.

I put out generous amounts of paint, acrylic...which they will be using...and then used a rag wrapped around my finger to demonstrate no concern for detail at this point and the initial step of blocking all parts in. A student took
this photo of me using the rag and painting-






















Here then is the painting...the last five minutes, I used a flat (brush) to suggest some detail...vertical lines for tree trunks. As always, clicking on the image brings up a larger view.












Each year, I do one of these quick demonstrations...not representing how I typically paint, but I find them fun and when finished expressive and intriguing visually in their own right.