I'm a Finger Painter at Heart

I started my new art class last night called High Energy Acrylic Painting. The
instructor is a hoot, he's a slighter older hyperactive man, John, who talks a
mile a minute. It was fun though hot and tiring. After a two and a half hour
class I was almost sweating I was so hot, but as I was driving home I was
trying not to bounce off the seat I was so hyper as well.

He is trying something a little new in a class environment. The emphasis of
the course is to stop painting with your conscious mind and move down deeper.
To that end we are doing high volume, high energy, quick works designed to
make you let loose. It's a five week course.

Week 1 Project:

Phase 1: 7 9"x12" paintings in 1 hour

The Rules: 4 colors - Green, Blue, Orange, White; Must cover entire page with
paint.; White must be paint, not just white canvas.; Must use each of the
colours even if it's just 1 spot.

Phase 2: 14 paintings from the first 7

The Rules:Chop each drawing approximately in half across vertical axis; Tape
off approximately half the drawing (Strip of tape across); Paint on one half
of the picture.; Must make at least 1 stroke, but can do whatever.

Phase 1 for me was a lot of experimentation. I started out trying to think of
subjects. My first was Garth, my kitty, recalling some of my recent photos and
drawings of him. I quickly realized that I needed to do more just
experimentation with the paint, strokes, how it mixes, how water affects it,
etc. While similar to oils it is a bit different too, and I don't have tons of
experience in either. 

Only one other of the first seven had a subject, albeit a very loose one of
the guy sitting across the room. The rest were fairly abstract color washes
and experiments. As time was running out I looked at my palette and I had an
inspiration, possibly a screw loose. I realized that unlike oils where you
theoretically want to be careful getting it on you, mainly because the
turpentine or other cleansing products are toxic and some oils have lead in
them, that acrylics are safe. You still don't want to eat them, but safer in
terms of bodily contact, not that I'm good at keeping the oils off me either.
I wanted to feel the paint and to get messy, so that's just what I did, stuck
my fingers and hands right in. 

I like getting dirty, I like feeling what I'm doing. So I started finger
painting, partly because time was running out and my brush was too small for
my liking, and partly because it just looked so damn fun. I like the
tactilness of feeling the paint and the surface and getting your whole body
into it. Wow, it came out so cool! It was so much fun smearing paint of the
canvas, just getting right down into it, smudging and streaking and dabbing.
It's such a primal experience. Sometimes I picked up the brush to make a
particular stroke, but I used my fingers and hands a lot. It was definitely
freeing. 

So at the end we put up all the 14 drawings times 8 people on the wall and it
was this burst of color and creativity.