ART CLASSES

Photo: B Beaven

This is a picture I did on Saturday in oil pastels.

The teacher said it was dark and brooding. Said she liked it.

I haven’t done oil pastels in what - - twenty-five years? I used to be quite good at it but I almost never use my artistic talent now. As I have mentioned before . . . in fact quite recently . . . I used to spend every waking moment drawing, painting, sketching-out comic-strip cartoons and generally doing Art. But no longer. I suppose it all got channelled into product design. See my October 2014 Post - - My Life Before Now

But someone drew my attention to an art class scheduled for Saturday called, Using Pastels in the Landscape, just up the road at Horsley Arts Centre, so I decided to give it a go. Everything was provided, crayons, paper, coffee and biscuits, plus teaching of course. I thought we were going to be sitting outside in the sun but in fact we were inside all day in the Studio, copying pictures torn out of magazines. No matter. Teaching was okay; you could have one-on-one if you needed it.

I thought the standard was high: everyone could draw well and apart from one person, who attempted to reproduce the magazine image exactly, in pastels, everyone was sufficiently creative to get their own personality across in their final work. My magazine photo for example was of a bright dawn just coming up over the horizon; not dark and brooding at all.

God, I was so rusty. Foolish to think I could get straight back into it after 25-years. It’s harder than it looks, actually. Don’t know yet if I want to pick it up again; it can take over your life.