Plein-air Sundays
4 Sundays (open enrollment)
Instructor: Vivian Flynn
"We paint from life in order to learn how to see.
If you can paint light, you can paint everything under the sun."
--Frank LaLumia,
Paint & draw the LA River, Griffith Park and other special locations
Explore the ways water color, acrylic, pastel & pencil describe your responses and impressions of nature and light.$240.
Art supply list will be given Some supplies furnished by AVAC
¡§Painting from life is a pursuit unlike any other painting technique. It challenges artists to concentrate every sensory nerve on the information in front them. They absorb it all, from sight to sound, from temperature to atmosphere, and then channel those feelings from head to hand, re-creating their impression in paints on paper or canvas.¡¨
Looking for Truth. The roots of painting from life are found in 19th-century Europe. Englishman John Constable believed the artist should forget about formulas and trust his own vision in finding truth in nature. To find that truth, he made sketches outdoors, then elaborated on them in the studio.
Around the same time in France, in a small village outside Paris called Barbizon, a group of artists focused their attentions on peasant life and the natural world surrounding it. Like Constable, Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet challenged conventions of the day, choosing everyday subjects rather than the traditional cliches and presenting them in realistic settings, the information for which came from sketches made in the field.
Note: Dialogue class not offered this term.