Friday Morning Beginner Acrylics Class Starts on a Colorful Note

Last Friday we started our first of 4 sessions on Acrylic Painting for Beginners. With 4 students. For 3 hours. We completed 3 color charts. Sounds like a lot of work? Well maybe so... but I have to say my eager students were up for the challenge. Happy to engage, ask questions, roll up their sleeves and jump right it. 

First Exercise: Creating a Color Wheel - As simple as this sounds, and what may look like to some as "child's play" is key to building a strong foundation in the principles of art. I do believe painting is a learnable skill accessible to anyone - as long as they have the desire and  willingness to "keep at it" and a teachable spirit.

I can already hear a student of my saying " But Linda, why do we have to paint a color wheel when we can just buy one at the store?" 

Good question, right? So instead of trying to explain why... I just squeeze out a dab of  the three primary colors, red, blue and yellow paint, hand over a palette knife and slip a canvas panel under their hands and... just say "start mixing red and yellow"....

And I've got them at "Hello Orange!" Yup - there's something so wonderful... truly magically when it comes to mixing colors. I could talk about it all day long but when you get to "play"-- to mix them yourself.... it just the  beginning of an addiction!  A good addiction. Addicted to color. Welcome to my world!

So along with this new discover we incorporated the use of a palette knife instead of a brush. It's takes a little practice to get the hang of it. For one, it's easier to hold like a soup spoon rather than a pencil. And the other trick is to keep the knife perpendicular to the surface like frosting a cake rather than trying to use the tip of the knife like the tip of brush.


​That was challenges but I think they started to get the hang of it. 
We have a great group and so looking forward to see how each one progress.