Sunday, March 27, 2016

Inspired By Teaching

 "Faith's Fruit"
14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

I've been working with this young lady, Faith, since the middle of last year. When her mother, who also happens to be the force behind the online arts magazine Combustus, first approached me about teaching Faith, I was hesitant - she was only 11 at the time, and my students tend to be, ahem, just a bit older than that. 
But I snapped out of that very quickly - after all, had I myself not been the recipient of mentorship and lessons at exactly that age, in the home-studio of an artist? The first time I ever oil painted was during one of those lessons, and I will never forget that day... 

Also, she's quite talented, as you can see!


 I set up this still life for her last lesson, and the next day, I looked at it and thought, "Hmmm..." Add a few white objects, and voila - a still life for me! I know I can take some lessons from the freshness and immediacy of Faith's painting.


I love teaching all my classes - workshops, demos, and private lessons. Who can say who gets more out of it, me or my students? 

I've got a brand-new workshop coming up April 23-24th in Eugene. It's called "The Primary Palette," and it's all about how I paint with three primary colors (or stand-ins for what we typically consider the primaries) and white. More info on that here.
I'll also be doing a 1-day intro to oil painting workshop, April 30th, which looks like it's filling up fast! 
And, since I'm plugging away....private lessons are always available, at my home studio or yours. Email me for details.

1 comment:

Amy said...

I love this post and I love to hear that you are mentoring a young aspiring artist. We need more teachers like that in this world! Kudos to you, Sarah. Always a source of inspiration.