A student’s perspective on learning how to paint trees or… How resistance is futile.

“Road to Talisker”   5” x 7”   Pastel   $50   © Sharon Lewis

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We had our art class last night with Karen Margulis. She talked about a number of useful tips to remember when painting trees and she did her usual impressive job on a demo painting of a tree. She then told us we would be using a technique that we’d used before, which involved doing several quick (10 minute) studies. Although we had all admitted in the past that this was a really great way to apply and later remember what we learned, we whined like teenagers who had been asked to clean up our room or take out the garbage.

            It’s times like these when I’m reminded what a good teacher Karen is. She listened to us whine (maybe secretly counting to ten) and then said something encouraging and supportive and like magic, we all moved into place at our easels and painted three ten-minute studies of trees. She actually let us go longer on one of them because someone complained that we didn’t get a two-minute warning (thanks Nancy!).

In spite of our initial complaining, we all learned a lot about tree shapes, how to mass in these shapes, and to carve into them with the sky. So, we learned valuable lessons including the fact that resistance is futile in the face of an immensely patient, very dedicated, and highly effective teacher. See Karen’s blog here for more helpful tips.

            Today’s painting is one I actually did weeks ago but touched up based on what I learned last night.