KICKSTARTING THE MOJO
By Terry Heinzmann
After a really, really long dry spell, like not
painting AT ALL for more than a year, I finally put myself back in a class
which is the only way I know how to get back into painting.
This class is about painting a still life in oil
and is taught by Jeanne Duval, an artist who lives and works in Jaffrey, NH.
In her small studio, seven or eight of us
crowd around three different still life arrangements and do our best to capture
the set-up.
Jeanne is tough, demanding and relentless
in teaching us to paint what we see, not what we think we see. The work is hard, challenging and requires
great patience. Thankfully, Jeanne has a terrific sense of humor, so we
all laugh a lot at our efforts.
One of the best part of the class is how I feel
after a three+-hour session of struggling with the process. Inevitably, I
feel happy, energized, and peaceful on my drive back home. It’s not necessarily
because I like what I’ve done, but more because I gave 100% to accomplish
something that I find very difficult (and, yes, I often am pleased with the
result, too!).
This painting shows the set up as well as my
almost-finished painting.
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