Acrylic Demo in Mesquite

The Acrylic demonstration on Monday with the Mesquite Creative Arts Group went very well. I have to admit I was pretty nervous at the thought of standing in front of a group painting and teaching for close to two hours. I've painted before where people come and go and, of course, I've taught before; but this kind of focus on me was a little intense!

Fortunately, I have the gift of gab and a love of what I do so after about 5 minutes of nervous stumbling..I picked up a paintbrush and all went well.

Since each painting takes me much longer than 2 hours, I had to do a little prep work beforehand. I took 3 canvases with me. 1-primed with my texture mixture; 2-basic sketch and colors blocked out; 3-partially painted..background mostly finished.

Using Canvas 1, I demonstrated how I used a variety of photos to create a composition. Then I sketch out the basic shapes..in this case..sky, tree line, large tree, and horse. Then I use the medium value for each area and "block-in" or paint in the shapes as one flat color. (See photo where I am taking the canvas off the easel.)

Using Canvas 2, I started adding more color working from the back to the front. After doing the sky and the treeline, we took a break.

Returning from break, I realized that I was running out of time and needed to do some work on the horse. I stayed with Canvas 2 and talked about the light and dark and painting of animals in general. I did not get finished with any of the pictures but I feel I gave an overall view of how I begin and work on a painting. (See photo of horse painting alone on easel)

I ended up not painting on Canvas 3 at all, but the foreground was much further along in that canvas so I was able to use it to show some of the painting techniques that I was discussing. (see photo of me holding the canvas)

I took my friend and student, Mindy, with me both for moral support and to take pictures and run the video camera. I did record the entire demo but I haven't quite had the nerve to watch it yet!

Overall, it turned out to be a very good experience for me and one I hope to repeat! I was invited back by their president to do a demonstration in Pastels so it must have gone well from their perspective as well!