New Approach to Painting Demonstration

Last night’s painting demo for the East Aurora Art society was very satisfying and inspiring, for the presenter at least! I believe the audience had a good time too as they interacted with me the demonstrator and with one another in asking questions, making comments and enjoying good snacks and artistic company. When I’ve done painting demonstrations in the past, I’ve typically arrived with a painting already in progress so the group could watch me work on refinements, and already have a structured scene to relate to from the beginning. But this time it was different.

The morning of the event, I got the idea to start from scratch. I’d had a piece already begun to continue working on for the demo. But I also had some blank canvas panels ready to go, and a new idea in my head for a fantasy art piece. I wanted the group to be able to see something emerge out of nothing but a blank slate, combined with paints and imagination. The fun we all had as the demo unfolded attests to the fact that this new twist was a good idea, at least on this occasion.

The medium being discussed was water mixable oils, with their wonderful properties of safety, easy clean up, and compatibility with traditional oils. These are, of course, true oil paints, just formulated to mix with water instead of turpentine (though that would work too). These miraculous paints can achieve the same effects as regular oils, including thin washes of glaze and bravura dashes of impasto application. Colors are rich and brilliant, and drying time is comparable with traditional oils. Pretty cool stuff!

I enjoy being able to get in front of a piece and work and go to town with the paints while talking and interacting with onlookers. There was no shortage of humorous banter back and forth while also talking serious art and technique. Everyone seemed to have a good time, while I hope much was learned and some inspiration gained to move forward with the artists’ individual creative directions. While not all the audience members were necessarily artists, most of them were, and there’s wonderful talent among the members of the art society. I was honored to be their presenter this month. It had been a while since I’d done a demo for them, and last time it was sculpture. So this time around was different in more than one respect.