Sentosa, Singapore
Hi Everyone,
Had my first watercolor art class today. There were 5 of us. Three of us were taught in English and 2 in Mandarin though I think they too understood English. Very humbling to actually try to paint watercolor that looks like real watercolor and not like watery acrylic. The class started promptly at 10 am and ended 15 minutes late at 12:45. An acrylics class was to begin at 1 pm so our instructor Shan had to make us stop and clean up. We all would have sat there for several more hours trying to fix our mistakes….which you mostly can’t do. But as Shan says, you can learn from them.
http://www.myartspace.com.sg/Pages/studio/studios.html shows pictures of the studio and the building housing it and the Art Cafe.
Our Instructor (from the MyArtSpace website)
Wen Shan
“After graduating with a diploma in fine art, Wen Shan spent 2 years in
Paris to learn French and major in life drawing. He passed the Test de
Connexion de Francais and mastered the fine art of life drawing at
Atelier Beaux-Arts de Mairie de Paris. The capital of the arts offered him
ample opportunities to meet artists from different parts of the world and
to be inspired by the dynamic arts scene.
As an instructor, Wen Shan’s primary role is to inspire and maintain
participants’ interest in art. He believes that critical thinking, self-critique
and learning from mistakes are important approaches in learning art.
Wen Shan offers guidance to learners in developing their own style and
statements through self searching and appreciating masterpieces.
To sharpen his sensitivity of seeing, Wen Shan keeps his hands busy
with still life, portrait and life drawing.”
Shan was informal, encouraging and professional. He didn’t let us get away with mistakes. He told us what was wrong and how to fix it, or in my case a few times, fixed it himself. The students were all supportive of each other too. There were 4 women and one young man and from what I could see we were all beginners. I’ll take some photos of them next time if they don’t mind and of the class/studio too. During the class we are all pretty focused on just trying to do our painting. The time just flew!
Shan gave us a few instructions and then told us to draw the still life composition. When we had been drawing for a bit Shan demonstrated the correct way to get the objects placed correctly on the paper. He helped us see the relationship between the 3 objects, the positive shapes of the objects and the negative spaces between the objects.
Our subject.
Then came the even harder part, painting with watercolor. We worked with only one color and changed its lightness or darkness by varying the amount of paint and the amount of water. Something that sounds so simple as painting with one color and water truly takes a great deal of skill. And lots of practice!
First we had to practice washes. Mine aren’t so good. The ones on the left are too uneven. The ones on the right were to go smoothly from light to dark and dark to light. My transitions aren’t good.
It actually looks better in this photo than it does in real life. I don’t usually paint on such large paper and lost track of my paint and what I wanted to do. I painted the larger areas too slowly and the small areas too fast. The bottle shadow is totally wrong. BUT…I did see what I was supposed to be trying to do so I will practice. It was interesting painting with only one color and water.
It was a really good first class and I am eager to return next Saturday. I had no problems getting myself back and forth from the class. I left the boat at 8 am and caught the 8 15 Sentosa bus to the Harbourfront MRT, switched trains at Outram Park and got off at the Tanjong Pagar MRT. I stopped to buy a new umbrella at the small wet market near the MRT and, even with stopping to take photos as I walked, was still over an hour early. The studio didn’t open until 9:50 so I just wandered around. That was fine, it’s an interesting area, but that left no time to talk with the other students. Actually only Janell (I think that is her name) and I were early. The others were actually 10 to 15 minutes late! Because I had to pay for a few supplies after class I didn’t get to chat with the others then either. Next time. If you look at the Wikepedia article about the area of Tanjong Pagar they do a pretty good job. I need to do some more research before I write about it.
Ruth Johnson
DoraMac