Different Strokes
Painting with Acrylics
with Pam Grose
The Workshop
In this 6 day painting class you will undertake several canvasses and quite a few different techniques. You will be working with acrylic paints this medium is very forgiving and can be used many different ways to achieve a variety of effects. You will be rubbing on colours, splashing with water, using texture paste and tissue and collage to texture the canvas. Laying colour on top of colour to make the painting more interesting and giving it a multi faceted glow. Everyone has different ideas of what they like and what they expect from a class I will endeavour to meet as many these needs as I can. For those who have a very basic idea that's fine I will give you options and directions to help you and take you step by step through the effects.
Option 1: A very stylised face and torso, using collage and acrylic paint with a few 3 dimensional aspects to the painting
Option 2: A stylised flower painting, using acrylic paints and inks in such a way as to get a very bold water colour look.
Now the options I've supplied are quite stylised and figurative if you wish to just work with colour and paint abstract pieces this is great but again bring in some inspirational pikes and you've got somewhere to start. For the class a little bit of research is required; bring with you pictures of paintings and images that inspire you. This gives you have somewhere to start, if you already have that image of something you've always wanted to try.......... bring it in.
The Tutor
I have always enjoyed drawing but it wasn't until my mid 30's that I had the opportunity to really put time and effort into developing as an artist. I am 49 years old, married with 4 grown children a dog and 2 cats, while my children were young I worked as an alterations lady and dressmaker, from this trade I learnt an incredible amount about pattern cutting and construction. I found the time when the kids were all at school to attend Albany Tafe in 1996-1998 and completed an advanced art and design certificate. For the last 11-12 years I have been a cloth doll designer and art teacher, this has been an awesome and most rewarding experience. I have enjoyed the opportunity to teach and travel Australia wide as well as in New Zealand and the US in various venues and symposiums. The dolls I make are complex figures, constructed from wire, cloth and polyester stuffing they also have fully needle sculpted facial features and I use acrylic doll eyes. These figures are then painted with acrylics just as you would paint any other picture, concentrating on highlights and shadows. So while doll making may have been the most productive art form for me, I love painting. I find that many of the regular students usually progress from the 3d figure to a flat canvas. I enjoy teaching others to play and experiment with the paints, not to be scared in trying out new techniques or mediums.