Acrylischism

Tuesday is our painting day at college. While I verily respect painting as the visceral aesthetic it can be (Or blend of precision with the coloured medium to create the mind-blowing works that you often see in Sci-Fi illustration), Tuesday is vying with theory day as my least favorite of the week. The problem, of course, is that I'm dreadful at painting. Firstly, I have zero experience. As far as my ability goes, painting is just daubing and smearing colour onto a rough line drawing (it's early days, we're still outlining what we paint before we start.) This is similar in practice to taking a picture-book and trying to colour inside the lines - something I have yet to master.
   Jack hit the nail on the head with his comment that it's like being a small child among adults. Those of us in the class with innate painting talent will thrive. Those of us who are not so fortunate have more or less paid for a few hours of easel rental per week. Our teacher, Sarah (pictured above; see: "dreadful") is an awesome person/artist, but passing on her trade is not her forte. She's going through the motions, versing us in theory and terminology, but give me a brush and my technique could only be described as wiping. Her advice concerning this is generally to use more paint or add more of X (colour.) So, for lack of instruction or demonstration, I reach the end of each Tuesday with another piece of ugly home-made noise testament to my poorness.

Tiresome.


What makes it worse than your average waste of time is the expense and preparation involved, not to mention Ken's daily antics[1]. Most of the long list of prerequisite supplies we got is painting-related. The woman at the art shop was a tad overzealous in tossing this and that into my bag once she heard what course I was doing (she knew Sarah by name as well) leading me to believe they may be in cahoots. That is all.

[1]
   I will revisit this topic in a later post.

A capillary hint of red