This studio class is about painting and practice. Painting has such a long and complicated history that is now transforming and including adjacent events, perspectives, and artists—that there is no real place to start. It has become professional and is an academic area of study. That said—anyone can use a paintbrush somehow and make a painting.
This class will be a lab where we study many things about painting the process and paint the material. This could include: experimenting with different types of paint, discussing what subject we paint, studying colors lying down next to one another, ideas about painting space, ideas about producing a lot of paintings on different types of surfaces and traditional canvas, letting go of your preconceived notions of what “good painting” might be, learning to make a stretcher, not naming the thing you are painting, stories of pigments and paint, and how to approach starting and finishing a painting. We also look at a lot of images of paintings, and celebrate the sociality of a studio class. The best part of the class is we are here together working and the room is filling up with many paintings. There will be an awareness of making paintings in your own time, and we will look at contemporary painting. You will achieve some understanding of your own relationship to painting as an artist.
We start with the basics. That said, the class is not meant to be conclusive, but you will leave from a more informed position about painting. This class is not a “how to” approach. You will not learn exactly “how to” render a figure, a horse, a building, etc. But we may paint them. It is important you know this. This class is part of the Visual Arts Program. We will make a lot of paintings.
