To Train a Beginning Painter
After my very early experiences with painting instruction, and my quite recent ventures into different techniques as a retired adult, it came to me that starting out by using painting knives instead of brushes could be a very useful way of eliminating the common reliance on tight control and tiny details that so many of us get involved in.
I am using painting knives more and more in my own work–and I love the freedom of expression that they spontaneously bring to painting. I admit to being somewhat horrified by the volume of paint required, however. As a painter of tiny miniatures, the fact that one scoop of the knife can gather more paint than needed for an entire painting of my usual size and style is more than a tad unnerving.
Perhaps that is one reason that my class and I are enjoying grabbing a knife to scrape our palette at the end of a session, then just playing with the paint. Some results are rather mediocre–but others get the “WOW !” reaction. Besides, it is so much more interesting than just wiping the palette clean and heading home as we used to do. On days like today, some of us will even work the entire session with our knife in hand. We are finding that using 140# or heavier watercolour paper, or stretched canvas, works well for this method. In class we work mostly with acrylics, although watercolour is a second choice. As we paint at the local Seniors’ Drop-In Centre, we have mostly avoided oils because of their odor/solvent requirements. There is no need to gas the Scrabble players behind us!
The use of the knife also leads one into the scary realm of ABSTRACTs. Having read a good book about how to paint them, the guidelines to follow, colour philosophy, etc., I was so frustrated and discouraged that I realised abstraction was not the place for me.
(I do like the comment that I read somewhere, ages ago, that ALL art is abstract, as we are taking the elements of our subject and interpreting (abstracting) them to suit our current vision.) It now feels to me that abstract art is more something to DO, rather than teach, or labour over the why’s and how’s. This is leading me into an area where I still have very little experience or knowledge, so I had best cease and desist !
Having said that, I would like to take a small group of true beginners and turn them loose with paint and knives and see where they go with it. Will they still struggle with the infamous “picture in my head” that causes so much frustration and dissatisfaction with one’s work ? Will they need genuine instruction in colour theory, or will they learn what they each need to know by just unconsciously mixing and using their paint ? Creating the appearance of depth in a painting is a less obvious need when just “fooling around”, but I can see where some basic instruction would be helpful for progress, if only to prevent some protracted “re-inventing of the wheel”. I also wonder how long it would take before the need to try something more realistic would emerge–and would they then go after it on their own, or revert to needing a more traditional teaching method ?
A final question–have any of you tried a version of this method for teaching new, or even not-so-new, painters ? If you happen to have been this type of student, your experience would be extremely helpful, too. I would love to hear from you !
Judi