It wasn’t so much about painting flowers in a vase as it was about learning what paint could do.
I didn’t want us to make an outline and fill it in, like coloring. I wanted to show the people in my class at The Mansion that there are different ways of using paint.
I tried to encourage watering down the paint so it was less opaque. We also splattered paint as a starting point to make flowers and give up some control. We used different-sized and shaped brushes. Although I gave a demonstration on how to use the paint and brushes, what I really wanted was for everyone to experiment with paint.
To find a way that worked for them.
I was trying to get everyone to relax and enjoy what they were doing. One woman was so nervous about making a mistake she was afraid to touch her brush to the paper. I wanted her to feel free to make mistakes.
Claudia had so much fun making dots with her paint, she covered her paper with them. And I could see that Art was more interested in painting circles than flowers.
Jane, who is a talented painter, paid no attention to what the rest of us were doing and focused on her art.
