Tag Archives: University of New Mexico

Beginning Painting

My class at the University of New Mexico, Continuing Education, Painting for the Complete Beginner ended last week. Here are a few examples of the work that was done in class. All of the paintings were done in acrylic. Although this was a beginning painting class, you can see the work is quite imaginative and well done.

Wendy Peterson, 2015

Don Koepke, 2015

Don Koepke, 2105

All of these paintings were done with the greatest care and diligence. It was such a pleasure to see students learn beginning techniques and then to watch them create such interesting and inspiring pieces. I hope that they all continue with their painting experience. They should. There certainly was talent in the group.

Joni Lebens, 2015

Corinne Armijo, 2015

My next class starts in June, 2015, and I get to experience the fun of playing with color all over again. I hope you enjoy these images, as much as I have.

Joni Lebens, 2015

Abbey Ibrahim, 2015

Painting for Beginners

My class at the University of New Mexico, Continuing Education, Painting for the Complete Beginner ended last week. Here are a few examples of the work that was done in class. All of the paintings were done in acrylic. As you can see the work is quite diverse and quite good.

All of these paintings were done with the greatest care and diligence. It was such a pleasure to see students learn beginning techniques and then to watch them create such interesting and inspiring pieces. I hope that they all go on with their painting experience. They should. There certainly was talent in the group.

My next class starts in January, 2015, and I get to experience the fun of playing with color all over again. I hope you enjoy these images, as much as I have.

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Painting for the Complete Beginner II

Here are some additional paintings from my class at the University of New Mexico, Continuing Education, Painting for the Complete Beginner that ended last week. As you can see the work is quite diverse and quite good for new painters.

African Sculpture. Mark Koson, 2014

Clay Pot. Mark Koson , 2014

All of these paintings were done with the greatest care and diligence. It was such a pleasure to see students learn beginning techniques and then to create such interesting and inspiring pieces. I hope that they all continue with their painting experience. They should. There certainly was talent in the group.

Mac. Vanessa Gonzales, 2014

Twin Towers, Gone But Not Forgotten. Linda Faust, 2014

Crow. Jane Nelson, 2014

Untitled. David Robbins, 2014

My next class starts the first Thursday in June and I get to experience the fun of playing with color and shape again with many more hard-working artists.

Painting for the Complete Beginner

This past Thursday was the last class of my University of New Mexico, Continuing Education class, Painting for the Complete Beginner. It was a very enjoyable art class for me to teach. I was so impressed by how the new painters took their tasks seriously and worked so hard. Some did homework on their own and many finished paintings at home that were started in class.

Pear. Lynn Eby, 2014

They started the class with just three colors, Cadmium Red and Yellow and Cobalt Blue plus white and black. Few in the class had drawing experience, but that did not slow anyone down. They dove in the first night by experimenting with color mixing. The second class involved painting a pear, which was challenging for some, successful for all.

At the end of the last class we displayed all available paintings that had been done. I think the painters were quite proud of themselves and somewhat surprised at how far they had come in just six classes (12 hours of instruction time). I was certainly proud of them.

Impending Storm. Camilla Brom, 2014

In the remaining four classes they painted whatever they wanted. It was so interesting to see how many different subjects people chose to paint in those four classes. They did paintings that included crows to landscapes. They were all open to suggestions and readily made changes that I suggested. I asked them to take a photo of their work, and here are some examples.

Here are more examples:

Tree. Linda Faust, 2014

Desert Life, White Sands. Linda Faust, 2014

The Two Year Pear Painting Adventure

This week I will be begin teaching a class at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Department of Continuing Education. It will be a beginning painting class and as a matter of fact, it is titled Painting for the Complete Beginner. Here is an excerpt from the class description:

This painting class is designed for people who have no previous painting experience. The most important objective of the class is to be in a comfortable, stress-free environment with other beginning painters.

I have been asked by several people why I want to teach a class at this time. I actually love to teach and was an instructor at UNM for several years. I like the idea of presenting new ideas and letting people experiment with their creativity. After I decided that I wanted to teach (again), my first thought was that I wanted to teach painting to real beginners. In the course of my personal art education I have been in many classes that were designed for one level of painter, yet accepted most people to sign up for the class. Invariably, the beginning painters were intimidated by the more advanced painters and the advanced students were frequently bored with the beginners.

In thinking about what I wanted to teach I could not help but think of my beginning paintings and what a challenge it was to get my ideas on canvas with reasonably attractive colors. I took few photos of my first paintings, nor did I think to date them. I did find a pear painting that went through several renditions before I decided to leave it and move on.

Here is the first version. As you can see it was a painting with little perspective and colors that did not work. I think that is what my teacher told me.

Pears, First Try

Pears, Second Try (fixed)

The “fixed” version had a total change of shadow that helped, but still was not interesting. I did more to the wall by adding more color variation that helped. I think I stopped here for a while, maybe a year, and went back to it a third time to try to save it:

Here is the last attempt. It is a good reminder of where I was and how many paintings I have done since then. It was a learning process all the way. I never showed this painting, but it hangs in my studio always as a reminder.