What I did at art class today. (18/7/2024)

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It was the second week of acrylics this week. My taxi came to pick me up at about 1:25pm. When I got there I went to the toilet and then made myself a cup of matcha green tea with a tea bag I brought from home. We were doing lanterns today. We chose a colour scheme and chose a picture off the board. I chose 3 again! I decided to do the simplest at art class and try the others at home when I've got more time. On my disposable palette I had the colours violet, red and yellow. And to tint, tone or shade them I also had black, white and grey. (The white to tint, the grey to tone and the black to ahade.) The tutor said we could draw our lanterns freehand, or if we weren't confident in doing that we could transfer it. But instead of using tracing paper or carbon paper we just scribbled over the back of the picture in the area where the lantern was and then drew over the picture of the lantern and then the picture was transferred. I decided to transfer my picture, so I started scribbling on the back of the picture with my pencil. But then Lee asked me if I wanted to use some of her powdered graphite. So I sprinkled some of that on the back of my picture and rubbed it in with my finger, getting into a right mess at the same time as usual! Sue knocked off the access and gave it back to Lee to put back in her pot while I wiped my fingers with some wet wipes! I drew on the picture and transferred it to the acrylic paper. It was a bit messy and smudges of graphite had got on where I didn't want it, so I rubbed that out using a putty rubber. I painted the background first. I mixed red with a bit of white to make a shade of pink and I painted that at the bottom below the lantern going sideways. Then I used pure red going up the painting, then at the top I added grey to red and painted the top bit. Then I let that dry. When that was dry I painted the lantern with violet. I left spaces where the highlights would be. When that was dry I painted the glowing area. I mixed red with yellow to make orange. I painted the areas to the top and bottom of the middle area with that. Then I added white to that to make it lighter and painted areas just a little bit more towards the middle. Then I added a lot more white to paint the middle section. I left that to dry. I painted in the highlights with violet mixed with a lot of white. But the smallest brush they gave us was not small enough for this purpose, and I went over some of the violet and couldn't get the lines to.go.straight, so when that was dry I had to go back in with the violet to tidy it up and straightened the lines. I painted in the black bits in the centre. Don't really know what they are supposed to be, but...... Maybe cables? But if it's a gas lamp why would it need cables? When the highlight on the very top of the lantern was dry I painted in the darker shapes that are on there. I presume they are meant to be air holes. The last thing I did was paint a bit of red that I'd missed at the side of the lantern where the cable bends round. And then I called it finished! I was the first to finish and I finished around 4:00pm! Some of the others didn't get to finish at all! So I took this picture of it (above) while I was waiting for the others to finish. We put the paintings on the floor so that everyone could look at them. Sue took pictures of the paintings. My taxi came to pick me up at about 4:58pm! When I got home I brought the painting out for Mum to sse. She didn't quite understand why we we painting lanterns, but I think she liked it! I had my tea (a prawn layered salad) and watched some telly. Then later I went into the dining room to do some more painting. I was using acrylics then too and I finished off a mini landscape and did some more to my ladybird and my bowl of fruit. I also had a bit of paint left over and I didn't want to waste it so I painted a mini canvas in a sort of olive green/ yellow ochre colour and I painted a square box canvas in light green. So what have you lot been getting up to today? I hope you are all well. Have a great night.