The non-painting painting class.

Last night was my painting class. People were the object d'art for the lesson and we were to bring in photos of people we knew, or whatever, to paint. Most people brought photos of their children or them and their spouses. I brought 'whatever' in the form of a woman doing some sort of yoga torture posture. I thought it looked cool and would be fun to paint.

Oh, but no...

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not very good at drawing and trying to draw this yoga woman proved very difficult for me. Ms Painting Instructor Woman, Hazel Medlyn sensed my frustration and offered some excellent advice: 'If you can't draw feet, make it really obvious that you can't draw feet'... and went on to say that (paraphrased) if your brain doesn't want to draw feet, don't force it to, play with the feet... perhaps your brain has a better idea that you need to listen to... go with what you perceive as a "weakness," flip it around, play with it and turn it into a strength.

So I did... I can't draw feet, hands or heads and so I let them be silly. I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the results! Ms Yogasnorkelgirl will eventually be painted but in last night's class is was her time to be figured out.



No paint but an excellent lesson! And a generally unseen part of the process of what goes into a painting. Two and a half hours of a painting course with no painting done is not necessarily a waste of time; it's just two and half hours of time in the process of painting a painting.