Bob's Boats

Having challenged my class with a similar scene, that I never got around to painting, it seemed appropriate that I should face up to my own inadequacies and paint something !  I have promised myself that I am going to actually WORK at drawing and painting boats and harbours and gulls and rocks--you get the idea.  This must be the first step.  There is a long way to go ! It is always good to have a goal before me, and a hand-made stick for prodding, too.

Progress will be slowed by my immersion in a new course, "Mastering Colour", from Richard Robinson, which contains many many exercises designed to teach one to see colour, evaluate it, and how to methodically try to reproduce it.  Then one gets into how to express types of light, and colour relationships, and moving from basic colour usage to more open and interpretive colour schemes.  This should all really improve the quality of my attempts to paint, as well as give me much more to share with my students.  At the moment I am busily gluing together about 20 paper boxes, in 9 shades of gray and a batch of colours.  The cats are soooo helpful !  These boxes are used to work with establishing values, first just with gray, then with colour.  Different lighting changes everything, too, of course, and this is where the fun begins !  I now have a new mantra to sustain me:  VALUE, HUE, CHROMA.    Easier said than done.......