Painting with Jane

My online class with Jane Davenport is entering its last week. This is my third class with Jane whose style of teaching is so delightful. As a teacher, she comments on each posting and encourages each of us on our artful journey. She has this incredible ability to see exactly what makes our painting or drawing feel wonky and gives us feedback so that we can make corrections and grow with each drawing. This course has been hard for me, drawing arms, bodies, legs, and hands. I now look at every model and advertisement and wonder how I can "elongate" and "stylize" the picture in my work. For the above assignment we had to paint a "fashion style" face and I have yet to do the rest of the task--in half, and then even smaller, and using fewer tools. That's next.

You can see that I didn't use a normal journal for this class. I altered the book The World of Matisse and gessoed pages for my backgrounds. It's been interesting to see the pages come through my paintings as seen below.

Jane has traveled to my part of the world to attend Teesha and Tracy Moore's Play Retreat January 26-30 at Fort Worden and then she is teaching Draw Happy and Comfort Drawing at their Artfest Annex February 3-5. If you told yourself you couldn't ever draw a face, take this class. Jane's method of teaching is easy to grasp and in no time at all you will be drawing faces every spare moment you have. Plus, you will make a delightful friend.

And if you are an art supplies fiend and don't know how to use all of it, Jane has just announced that her Supplies Me class is going live again on January 30. She just posted a video blog about her trip to Seattle here.