You are an artist

Take a moment to look at the differences in these paintings.

My talented class today with their paintings of Toukley Beach, north of Sydney, Australia.
My talented class one Saturday in November 2015 showing off their paintings of Toukley Beach, north of Sydney, Australia.

You can see by the smiles that a good afternoon was had by all. They should be proud. The have applied themselves with concentration and focus to transform a blank canvas into a thing of beauty.

This class proved yet again again that creativity need not be taught. Everybody is creative. They make decisions. As adults, they have already developed tastes and preferences.

Compare the student versions with the original source image.

Two of the students shown here hadn't picked up a paintbrush since high school!

Yes, it is recognisably the same scene, but it has been transformed by their imagination into something unique. One of the most precious things we can create in this world, a physical manifestation of their aesthetic sensibilities.

If you give people effective processes then their innate originality will manifest in the work at hand. I see that time and time again in the classes.

This class was organised, according to our usual plan, into 4 segments:

  1. Tone: toning the canvas and analysing the scene
  2. Blocking: Blocking in the basic colours
  3. Texture
  4. Detail