You and Me
I am going to let you in on a secret. You do not need any talent to paint and draw. If you are looking for art classes and stumbled onto my website, I want to tell you that you can succeeed at making art.
You are probably thinking, Barbara doesn’t know me. I’ve taken art classes before and I was a flop. Or maybe you’re thinking, no one in my family is artistic, so I can’t possibly be. Then there’s always the old teacher who told said to you, “You have no talent for art, be an accountant.”
I assure you that you can learn to paint and draw because these are skills that can be developed. Think about learning to do laundry. You learned the words detergent, washing machine, hot water, shrink, etc. Then you learned the sequence of doing laundry; You get your clothes dirty, you put the clothes in the washing machine, you add the detergent, you adjust the dial, you close the lid of the washer etc. Maybe in the course of learning to do laundry you even turned someone’s white work shirts pink, ( I did this to my husband’s shirts). You learned from your pink shirt mistake, what caused it and how not to do it again perhaps. This task was mastered by learning the vocabulary, learning the steps in sequence and practicing them. Drawing and painting are no different. I have seen many of my students become successful artists in my years of teaching.
I like to give my students cookies as often as possible.
If you walk into one of my classes, I will show you about 5 simple techniques for drawing and watercolor painting. I think these techniques will get you drawing and painting successfully if you practice them. I’ll also explain about: finding time to paint, making your art supplies accessible, lots of different pens, brushes, inks, pencils and more, (yay! You get to buy art supplies). I’ll also show you lots of different ways to fix your mistakes (remember the pink work shirts?), and how to: mix paints, arrange interesting compositions, travel painting, journal painting, pen and ink drawing, make your own sketchbooks and much more.