Try something different

Tomatoes grown by children
watercolour, watercolour crayon,
and acrylic on watercolour paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010
(This is the one I worked on tonight)

Children's garden tomatoes in a glass bowl
acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010
(This is the one I did a few years later.
much more verve and style). It is sold.

I took a course seven years ago now with Skip Lawrence
and Toph Schink in California. I think it changed my
life, but I didn't know it then. I was just rattled by their
ideas, and worried about my own. Don't get me wrong
I was crazy about those guys, they were great teachers,
and thinkers. They were funny, kind and soooo
talented.

Of course what they taught me sunk in. But only bit
by bit. And if they saw the piece of work I am posting
tonight they'd question that. But here's what they said
that I found hard to take at the time, "You're not a
watercolourist, a colourist, an acrylic painter, or a
drafts person, you're an artist and the most important
thing is what you make, not how you make it!" I
think 15 watercolour people in that class probably
fainted dead away after that idea, and even though
I'd moved on to acrylics, I would never, and I mean
never think of combining those different media.

They were opposed to the use of white, and I was
a floater -- sit an object on a white space. They
were so radical for me at the time, that I hardly
painted for two months. I just despaired. But of
course, being a painter, I emerged much stronger
than before I'd met them.

Going through my art drawers I found a sad little
watercolour of tomatoes. I recognized the cake plate
they sat on, because I've painted it many times,
but I didn't recognize the work as mine. I think it
was a vestige of my life right before that course.
Tonight I took a go at it. I know it still doesn't
work. It would be best to start over, or just to
forget it. But I learned a lot from trying to beef
its pale surface up (no pun intended those are
not beefsteak tomatoes). Those are organic vintage
tomatoes grown by a group of school children in
a park near me.

The second painting is one I did a few years
later of the same subject, and you can probably
see what I learned.

But here's what I did to the one I worked on
today. I darkened the tomatoes and the glass work
with watercolour crayon acrylic and watercolour,
I painted the "table" the glass plate sits on with
black acrylic. I divided the background and painted
in the blue and the yellow. I painted the area that
should be the table with two or three blues.

For now that's it. The painting doesn't have enough
zip for me to continue, but it taught me a lot about
what I've learned and I'm grateful to everyone who's
given me formal lessons, and who has taught me
informally by just posting their work on the net.
Thanks bloggers.

Have a noticing-what-you've-learned day.