Diary Entry-03/03/2017- The Pain of a Pane

I must admit, vanity aside,  that I can paint reasonably well at home. For some curious reason, unknown to myself and maybe completely obvious to my artist friends, is that the artwork I produce at evening classes is, well… its pants!!!

Possibly it’s because I’m more relaxed at home when I paint so I then  feel less constrained; or it could be that I’m worried about my paintings  being observed at the end of the session. Who knows?!

Anyway, during my art lesson today, our tutor gave us the subject matter of buildings. We had already studied perspective and vanishing points, so now it was time to put our knowledge down on paper. We were given free rein to paint any sort of building, so long as it was a building.

The choices were limitless. Scenes from Venice, Rome, cottages and farmhouses. I had a great opportunity to paint something quite simple, which in turn would let me explore mixing the paint and using different techniques. It would then enable me to keep the drawing loose and light which would help me to focus on keeping me relaxed throughout, therefore, producing a painting I was finally happy with. So what did I choose to paint in my moment of madness?!

A picture of a cluster of buildings with around 53 bloody windows in them. My tutor suggested it was a massive undertaking in the 2 hour time slot, but I was determined. I swallowed my pride and kept going. I had the usual expected whistles and sighs from my fellow art colleagues of “Goodness, that’s a lot of windows”, “You’re brave”, and “Not much time left!”.

By the time I got to window 34, I was flagging and got so frustrated and fed up I threw it in the bin.

Note to self: When learning to paint keep it simple!