It is the first week of the painting elective. We started out by looking at some artists and painters we were interested in. I picked Van Eyke, because i really like the way he uses oil paint to create such unbelievable detail:

 The details is unbelievable. He layered the oil paint mix to get this. Even to achieve gold, gold leaf was not used but the same technique. I think it is unbelievable, the garment detail, the mirror reflecting the image, like you could touch it

Looking at the oriental carpet. It looks real and textured. When you look closer, reflections in the armor of St. George can be seen. amazing and for something painted so long ago.

We also looked at a slide show of 16 artists, just briefly. We were asked then to look them up in more detail. I must update these here from my contextual notebook.

We began painting on Tuesday. First blind painting. I enjoyed this but it was strange. It made you become more aware of your other senses and it made you let go of control

In the afternoon, we did some painting with a credit card and acrylic.  I found this really hard. I think. firstly, i really really found it hard to let go of controlling it and just try it without worrying about the lines being perfect. Secondly, i could not get used to the acrylic paint. I have always used oil up to now except for a couple of pictures(when i had nothing else). Acrylics dont mix at all and dry so quickly.. I tried using it during the first semester and found it difficult also. I was beginning to get a bit more relaxed with it and the credit card by the end but i want to do more of this. I didnt get one picture finished

The next day, we were told to put all the objects that we had brought in into the center of the room. I was purple so in the end i got some flowers, purple lettuce, wool, red(purple!) onions,  2 purple tops. When we had this done, we were divided into groups and asked to make sculptures out of the objects. I enjoyed this. It was a bit of fun.

 We did many of these and for the last one, we were asked to draw thumbnails of different parts of it and then paint it. I found it really hard to paint it in the time. I was being too particular and also i think the thumbnail i had done to begin with, included too much. Even the perspective ended up incorect because i was anxious to get it done and time was running out. I had only started to get into the shading by the end of the evening. We were only to use three shades: dark, medium and light. We mixed the dark one first and mixed the medium and light from this. I got bogged down with colours, like black and purple must be dark but it wasn't about the colours of the objects but about the light hitting them and the shadows and shades cast by them.

We did more scultures again, I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable at this stage with the paint. I also enjoyed it a lot more cause i let it happen without worrying about making a mistake.