My Stupid Class

I have group oil lessons on the first Monday of every month. For some reason, I continue to purchase groups of threes and then get pissed because I have to continue to go.

I love my teacher, and am rather afraid that some fluke will occur and she will find this blog and get her feelings hurt. I hate my group lesson subject matters so have a difficult time getting motivated. She has started painting for the first 45 minutes of each 3 hour class and she wants us to watch her. Well, she has a friggin' television show so if people want to watch her paint, they should tune into her show. So, for the past several lessons, I have patiently watched HER and then only have 2 hours to work on my own piece. Last class, there were 5 of us and three of the students didn't want her to stop painting so she said she would paint for an hour and a half - this leaves me about an hour to work on my own. I was so aggravated. Another lady and I went to our own stations and started sketching while everyone else was watching her. She continued to paint so I started my on my own.

Things I think are important for her to know but would never have the nerve to tell her:

:: her reference photos are too complicated for most students

:: students want to leave feeling talented and proud

:: when many people say they have never gone back to canvases worked in class, something is wrong

:: we are there to learn to paint but that can be accomplished with a simple study

:: the quality of the reference photos always SUCKS

:: if one is not loving the photo, one will not be excited

:: keep it simple for 3 hour class

:: we are not there to watch someone paint

Believe it or not, two of the five students in the last class NEVER, EVER picked up a paint brush. I don't like other students walking around and watching me work and commenting AND my teacher painted her painting the ENTIRE CLASS! I was so pissed.

I work much better on my own and I still adore my private lessons with my teacher. I have one more public class paid for and I hope I remember not to pay for another series when asked.

Here is the subject matter from the last class:

Ugly picture, hate the cut off bottle look and find olive oil tag huge and ugly. WAY too complicated for a 3 hour class and especially so when actual paint to canvas time is a little over an hour.

This is what I did in an hour and a half in class:

I had to sketch FAST and put paint down at record speed. It made me work loose so that was good.

After working on my cherries more, I decided to pick up the class canvas again and thought "abstract and loose and fun" while painting. I had also had a couple of glasses of wine and thought it is coming along brilliantly - surprising me greatly!

Here was my drunken addition:

I was actually working with large brushes and thinking more negative space than usual while painting.My first water drop! I suppose it is oil because it is an olive oil bottle but still....

I want to continue to punch up the color a bit and finish off the center bottle metal pieces - I am rather liking how it is coming along (HUGE SURPRISE!!!!) and I have always shied away from metal, glass, water drops.

This reminds me of another stupid bottle picture from another stupid class.

I hated this so much that I even threw away the reference photo. I did this in about 2.5 hours in class. We said we wanted to paint wine bottles so she gave us this! Why does she always cut off bottles? sigh..........

Next up, my current WIP.