Van Gomer

Crazy comes on a little too strong here, so Heidi suggested that I join a local painting class.  The instructor is a professional artist that has lived in Anchorage for quite a while.  You won't find any watercolors on his page, but there are some fantastic oil paintings.  Don is a rather large, jovial guy that tries to get us to lighten up in class.  He has a small bag of jokes, his favorite being a story where a woman paid him an odd compliment.  "You could teach a cow to paint!" she said.  (Pause for laughter).  "That's udderly possible!"  Ugh.  Five classes with him, and three times I've heard his cow joke.

"Blue hoo hoo"

Class 1.  We started with introductions.  Don, myself, and 10 females make our class.  The girls range from "I took some art classes in high school," to "I gave up on push-up bras long ago.  Now I wear pull-ups."  Everyone was nice, and one of the ladies brought in cookies.  Yes, our round instructor warmed up to her.  When it was time to paint,  we started with the basics.  You may see that the basics aren't always easy.  We started with a "wash" by painting the whole sheet with water, letting it dry a bit, then adding color in the same fashion.  The nice thing with that is that you may end up with a decent sky without even trying!  But that's merely background noise compared to the mountain.  Don showed us how to start at the peak, and drag the brush down.  By starting at the peak every stroke, you follow the mountain's contour, and it doesn't look too bad.  Not the case here.  As with many things, the more relaxed you can be, the better the outcome.  That's why he kept reminding us to breathe.  "But Wayne, I've been breathing on my own while falling asleep reading this exciting tale!"  Good for you.  As for me, it wasn't so simple.  Start at the peak and drag the brush out became "Start at the peak for a few strokes, then start to panic.  Now, hold your breath and wonder why you are mixing more paint partway through.  It's not that big of a mountain!  Quickly mix more up, and try to make up time before the first part dries.  Good, now abandon all other instructor guidelines.  Try not to drop any newly formed sweat on the paper.  No matter, just avoid that damn peak with your brush and fill the rest of the page with blue.  Faster!  There, nice job.  You have created the dust trails of twenty roadrunners, off to terrorize another coyote."  Alright, that wasn't so bad.  Time to make this baby really pop!  Don said, "Draw two trees, and don't try to re-invent them.  Just give me some basic triangles."  Well, the mountain is a basic triangle, and that really turned out well.  I'm about to blow his mind with these skills!  One rocket-tree and one odd blob comin' up!  Yes!  Nailed it!  Now you may breathe.  Phew!  It's a good thing he has a sense of humor, because each of these classes are three hours long.   

"Lifesavers"

Class 2.  More mountains.  Great.  Well, I gave this one a valiant attempt, and got some improvement.  The foothills came with a warning- don't make it look like a roll of Lifesavers.  At least I know what not to do next time.  Next was the meadow, which consists of ovals of color.  Pretty simple, huh?  Top that off with our ugly local black spruce trees, and slap on a price tag! 

"Homesick"

This painting was inspired by Heidi's two week stay on the North Slope.  She only had a few coworkers that she barely knew, and was feeling a little lonely.  This seemed like a great time to try out a Colorado sunset, and throw in the Denver skyline.  It turned out pretty well for my first unsupervised go-round.

"AK M Tees"

Alaska mountains, that is.  After the sunset painting, I was fired up.  It was time to see what I could do on a proper landscape.  I had some fun trying to mix colors appropriately, creating some depth, and sneaking in a little detail.  Every painting I do leads me closer to an awesome one, and this was a good step.

"Negative is a Good Thing"

Class 3.  This one was fun.  After I tried each step, it felt like I was getting it.  I was excited to try the whole thing again to see how I'd do, which you'll see in the next painting.  The basis of this class was negative space.  This comes from the smaller trees that fade in the distance.  It's certainly a different technique, and pretty fun to try.  The real joy came from splatter painting the trees.  None of us had the Don wrist flick, but they all turned out well.

"Turn that Negative into a Positive"

Alright Don, let's see what I've learned.  The leaf background turned out well, (too bad you can't really see it).  The negative space trees seem to have lost their character, and one even looks like a ghost tree.  A g g g ghost tree!  As for the forest floor, it seems to lean towards psychedelic colors (what did Heidi put in my coffee??), and I think I may have hit an artery on one poor tree.  Sorry, tree.  Hopefully the ultra-yellow leaves will soak that up for you.  The splatter-leaves were going well, but as I was mopping up the excess on my masking tape, I discovered why long sleeves are a bad idea.

"Gettin' My Feet Wet"

Class 4.  Reflections and confusions.  This class was a bit tricky, because you can't just flip the paper over and paint an exact opposite.  For example, the second layer of mountains just peeks over the front ones.  Once we got that figured out, it went pretty smooth.  It wasn't supposed to be a night scene, but I had too much pigment in my brush.  I took this as an opportunity for some knife practice, and created a few stars.  "Happy mistakes", or something like that.

        

"Don't Leaf Me"

Come on, you smiled.  This one stemmed from some youtube videos, where I landed on this. 

A cute, easy tree.  I continued looking and came across the inspiration for this painting.  I got to practice a few techniques; the wash, some blotting, and splattering.  The wash went well, I didn't get too crazy with the blotting, and the splatter business also went well.  I approve. 

"Shanner Bananner"

My inspiration came from my brother's nickname for his daughter.  I figured I should be able to do a single-fruit still life by now, so I grabbed a banana and gave it a shot.  The shadow got a bit off, but I was able to hide it with some sneakiness later.

"Treets"

Nowadays, my favorite youtube videos are about downhill mountain biking.  Many are shot from a helmet cam; others come from very high quality cameras and are expertly edited.  My inspiration for this painting came from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPAr2cSUcFw

Subtle changes in color takes serious skill, and someday I'll try this one again.  

"Summer in Alaska"

Class 5.  Last of the Watercolor I series.  We ate some more cookies, and learned about shadows.  They consisted of general blobs in the background, proper diameter for round trees, and correct length and angle for the fence.  If one thing looks off, it can wreck the whole thing.  Can you tell where I missed the mark?

"Owensaur"

Ask a boy what picture he'd like, and he'll tell you, "A truck or a dinosaur."  Heidi's brother's oldest son Owen must have thought of his spirit animal, 'cause they both have plenty of spunk!  Jungle trees and Christmas trees better watch out!

"Eye Sea"

Owen's sister Avery is quite the artist, especially for being in kindergarten!  She's been sending us pictures since we moved up here, and I finally got to do one for her.  

"Cold Feet, Warm Tacos"

Still not sure why this penguin is eating a taco, but he seems happy.  Maybe Travis can tell us.

"Domo Arigato"

There were various art world reps at my store, and we got to try some different stuff.  This is a bit of fun with airbrushing.

"Blob the Frog"

This is my attempt at hot wax transfer.  You melt colored wax on a hotplate, and press paper or cloth onto it. 

I have since joined the Watercolor II class, which doesn't have so much structure to it.  Don told us that four of the five weeks will be focused on a single painting, so it should be awesome!