This weekend I had my first attempt at painting with acrylic paints. Painting has never been anything that I’ve felt particularly drawn too. I remember that I enjoyed collage work much more in the art classes at grammar school. And at primary school my favorite type of painting was splatter painting 
So this C&G course is making me try my hand at some new activities.
The task was to take a photograph, cut it in half, paste it onto paper leaving a gap of 2 – 3 inches, and then fill in the gap. I knew I wouldn’t get it right first time, having never done anything like this before. So I decided to go through our digital photos and choose one. That way I could print it out as many times as necessary. One of my favorite photos is of a cornfield in Northern Spain. It was filled with wild flowers – poppies and cornflowers and others. Obviously the corn wasn’t treated with all manner of chemicals there. The photo turned out to be quite a challenge though, as there is lots of detail in the cornfield, so I wasn’t really sure how to tackle it. I had two attempts.
Here’s the first:
The horizon turned out well as did the poppies and the cornflowers, but the background was too pale and it wasn’t a good idea to use two colours for the cornfield.
So then I had a second attempt using a uniform darker green background for the cornfield:
Better, but maybe the green is now a little overpowering? I ended up doing 3 colour washes: first green, then a bluer green and then some yellow. After that I added the stalks, ears of corn, poppies and cornflowers. At some point you just have to say enough is enough. Any more and it will just get worse not better. So I’ve sent off the photo to my tutor to see what she has to say.
Funnily I was talking to my Dad on the phone yesterday, when my niece arrived to visit him. So I was able to chat to her too. She is currently doing a PGCE in Art for Secondary schools. I was telling her what I was up to. The next activity is to paint a fruit. I have choosen a pumpkin and she had to do the same as a resource for a lesson. She had chosen a pumpkin too, so we will both be sitting in front of a pumpkin and painting 
I’m sure her’s will be better than mine as she is quite artistic and has far more practice.
