Creative
Painting with Pat (and Jutta!) - by Pam Gross
They
say that each one of us is a child at heart and on Wednesday 14th of
November, a group of us took the chance to spend two hours under the
guidance and encouragement of Jutta having fun and showing off our creative
skills. Pat Haselwood had organised this session with her favourite art
teacher and Joyce, Anita, Viv, Irmgard and yours truly found ourselves in
front of a huge table, laden with brushes, paints, paper and all sorts of
interesting bits and pieces, eagerly anticipating our 'playtime'. Jutta
Brandt-Stracke is a professional painter and art teacher, a friendly
bubbly lady with huge talent which was in evidence by all the paintings
on display all around her studio. She soon put us at our ease helped by
cups of tea and coffee plus a large plate of chocolate biscuits, (no diets
allowed this morning). To begin the session we were told that we had to
break all the rules and ignore the teacher
inside
us and listen to our inner child. To this effect we were instructed to
close our eyes and with a fat crayon in the opposite hand to the one we
normally wrote with we had to draw what we felt whilst holding a spiky
hedgehog-like rubber ball. We then had to repeat the exercise with a small
glass dish and then a third time with a variety of objects ranging from
shells to a piece of fur. The results were interesting and from them we
learned that the left side of our brain which controls the intellect was
'the teacher' in this case and the right side controlling the creativity
was the 'inner child'. Finally we had to close our eyes again and with our
right hand (we were all right handed) feel our hair and facial features
and with our left hand, draw what we felt. The results would have impressed
Picasso but maybe not those who knew us! Having established that we were
in possession of our inner child we were ready to begin. Jutta explained
that we were going to trying our hand at "Monotypie” (Monotyping), which
involves applying colours, in this case Acrylic paints to sheets of glass
and then taking prints from the glass onto watercolour paper which is not
very permeable. She explained there were three different techniques to be
used during the session , the first involved applying paint to a dry
sheet of glass and taking a print from
a dry sheet of paper, the second by wetting the glass prior to applying
paint and once again using a dry sheet of paper for the print and finally,
by wetting the glass and then using a dampened sheet of paper to print
onto. By now we were all chomping at the bit to get started and soon the
room was a buzz of creative activity whilst we experimented with colours,
methods of applying the colours and wild and wonderful designs. I believe
that Joseph Beuys once said Every Man is an Artist, well in our group we
proved beyond doubt that 'Every Woman is an Artist', with a display of
work that would not have looked out of place in any gallery. We had a
wonderful time, some of us got paint in the strangest places (no names
mentioned) and the 2 hours flew by far too quickly. Maybe next year we
will be able to organise the very first BWC Art Show. ...Watch this
space.
They
say that each one of us is a child at heart and on Wednesday 14th of
November, a group of us took the chance to spend two hours under the
guidance and encouragement of Jutta having fun and showing off our creative
skills. Pat Haselwood had organised this session with her favourite art
teacher and Joyce, Anita, Viv, Irmgard and yours truly found ourselves in
front of a huge table, laden with brushes, paints, paper and all sorts of
interesting bits and pieces, eagerly anticipating our 'playtime'. Jutta
Brandt-Stracke is a professional painter and art teacher, a friendly
bubbly lady with huge talent which was in evidence by all the paintings
on display all around her studio. She soon put us at our ease helped by
cups of tea and coffee plus a large plate of chocolate biscuits, (no diets
allowed this morning). To begin the session we were told that we had to
break all the rules and ignore the teacher
inside
us and listen to our inner child. To this effect we were instructed to
close our eyes and with a fat crayon in the opposite hand to the one we
normally wrote with we had to draw what we felt whilst holding a spiky
hedgehog-like rubber ball. We then had to repeat the exercise with a small
glass dish and then a third time with a variety of objects ranging from
shells to a piece of fur. The results were interesting and from them we
learned that the left side of our brain which controls the intellect was
'the teacher' in this case and the right side controlling the creativity
was the 'inner child'. Finally we had to close our eyes again and with our
right hand (we were all right handed) feel our hair and facial features
and with our left hand, draw what we felt. The results would have impressed
Picasso but maybe not those who knew us! Having established that we were
in possession of our inner child we were ready to begin. Jutta explained
that we were going to trying our hand at "Monotypie” (Monotyping), which
involves applying colours, in this case Acrylic paints to sheets of glass
and then taking prints from the glass onto watercolour paper which is not
very permeable. She explained there were three different techniques to be
used during the session , the first involved applying paint to a dry
sheet of glass and taking a print f
rom
a dry sheet of paper, the second by wetting the glass prior to applying
paint and once again using a dry sheet of paper for the print and finally,
by wetting the glass and then using a dampened sheet of paper to print
onto. By now we were all chomping at the bit to get started and soon the
room was a buzz of creative activity whilst we experimented with colours,
methods of applying the colours and wild and wonderful designs. I believe
that Joseph Beuys once said Every Man is an Artist, well in our group we
proved beyond doubt that 'Every Woman is an Artist', with a display of
work that would not have looked out of place in any gallery. We had a
wonderful time, some of us got paint in the strangest places (no names
mentioned) and the 2 hours flew by far too quickly. Maybe next year we
will be able to organise the very first BWC Art Show. ...Watch this
space.