23 March, 2017

The social pages

When I grew up, the newspapers generally supported an arts supplement that would frequently feature gallery and exhibition openings. Photos of well coiffed and suitably bejewelled patrons, flute of champagne or cigarette in one hand ,would sit cheek by jowl in glamorous company. These pages were poured over in case one was either AT the event or KNEW someone who attended. The famous heart transplant surgeon and his model wife (no.2, mind you) were the prize guests. Various minor european royals, the jet-set beautiful and the old money set were all there, jostling for attention. We never saw the paintings, just the beautiful people!

These days, the newspapers have dropped the arts supplements and the only way to get your face in the who's who arts magazine social pages is to pay someone to put it there. Sign of the times.

So, I raise my glass and toast: Here's to the beautiful people, the good souls who both came to the exhibition opening and continued to stream into the gallery both Saturday and Sunday. You all looked marvellous and frankly, I was delighted to see you all.





















I was so confident that the visitor numbers would be slow over the weekend that I took a book to occupy the time and some lunch. Truth is, I touched neither and have never been more delighted to be less informed nor hungry!

Thank you for sharing your stories with me about what the work said and meant to you and thank you for listening to my stories too.

I am now decompressing after an eventful few weeks.

ps. the book, by the way, is called "Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking" . Frankly, I am fascinated but have yet to make much inroad. I keep having to google Soviet and Russian history. The lunch was not Soviet.


08 March, 2017

Colour and cookies

The colour workshop was good and bad, depending on who you spoke to and when!

Who knew that talking so much was exhausting and left one's throat  parched  .Also, who knew I was that excited about colour!! I saw the fear in their eyes as I started my spiel and my fellow tutor told me afterwards that he thought I was rather excitable!

o dear!

" All learning starts with confusion" said Pat, a teacher by trade and a painter in my tuesday class .I am immensely grateful to him for stating that fact. It's true and I should have remembered that because everything I have ever tried to learn has begun that way too, so why should a colour class not begin with total confusion either!?

Colour wheels, colour temperatures, value, hues, tints, tones, primary, secondary and tertiary colours, complementaries.... see the problem?!??
I think learning by doing is best. So we mixed and mixed and mixed paint until we were dizzy with mixes.

It was a long day and they did very well.Very well!  I was reminded that the ease of it comes with experience . I was encouraging the lovely participants to apply critical thinking to their mixes and to be logical (even clinical )when mixing paint. Intuitive mixing comes with practise and experience, just as one cannot teach wisdom to a young doctor, they has to grow, learn , make mistakes and gain experience before they become wise, so too is the lot of the painter. The good news is,I think its easier to get a grip on colour than on medicine!



Incentive!













Next class in on Saturday 8 April at my studio. I will bake more biscuits!

Oil painting mixes and small class of 5 only. Let me know if you want to come by emailing me
jennie@jenniedegroot.com
$100 per person


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