New to Painting 1

Hi all

I've just enrolled on Painting 1 and am enjoying making a start on the first project. I haven't done any painting for quite some time, so the course is going to be a challenge. At the moment I'm rediscovering just how hard drawing can be!

Looking forward to hearing from others on the same course.

Deborah

Hiya Dtaylor,
Is that the Starting To Paint 1 course?
Cos' that's what I'm on !
Although I dont really know whre to get started !!!
I've just opened the box and I'm about to start reading the folder

Thanx

At the risk of incurring the wrath of any tutors, etc. that read this, drawing is easy Dawn, don't worry about it anyone can do it !

There's a great book that's already pretty famous called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty J Edwards ( ...I think ). I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone of any age.
I guarantee your Tutor will know of it and I'd be disapointed if they didn't say it was worthwhile, although I'd understand if they'd be more biased towards the course material !

When I left school my old art teacher gave me probably the best final piece of advice... "Draw from photos, catalogues, etc."
At the time I didn't really understand what he meant at the time but did so.
I soon learnt to turn them upside down and reflected through a mirror which he never said outright but hinted at, I guess he felt I had to figure that step out for myself and he was right.
I soon "got it" and only years later did I discover this book with mixed feelings.
Everything this book teaches I figured out how to do myself, but I do sometimes wonder and wish I'd discovered this book before ( Eh? ...That's life innit?! )

The thing is you gain something and you lose something...
Although I'm quite content to look at something and draw what I see, and am generally quite content with the results, I do seem to have lost the ability to just sit down with a blank sheet of paper and just draw purely from my imagination! That in some part may also be a loss of childhood imagination but I do miss it so!

Now when it comes to the complication of colour? ...That's a different matter and is when things start becoming a bit more complicated. Colour, I feel is a very personal thing !
BTW the latest editions of her book, which I haven't read, does deal with colour, but I feel colour and its interpretation is such an individual/instinctual thing that it can't be so easily learned ( ...especially from a book !). This of course is only my opinion and I'm more than willing to/hope to have my mind changed about this.

Anyway i really recommend looking out the book. It'll honestly save a lot of soul searching and hair pulling out !!!

Oh! I do go on so! But I guess I'm just glad to be finally conversing with like-minded people about a subject that is really close to my heart! That alone seems to make joining this course worthwhile !!!

Hi! I don't get on with that book either but suppsoe we are all different! I like to look at books before I buy them but sadly when I got this one I didn't and so it sits unused - depsite having tried with it!

Chris

Mary I agree with you about Betty Edwards she teaches a distinctive style that can take away from individuality, having said that still recommend it to others as a starting point, but that's just what it is. I prefer Ian Simpson's book Drawing Seeing and Observation.
Deborah, welcome to the course. I'm on the second assignment of Painting 1 and enjoying it. Keep in touch through the forums and let us know how you progress