Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Art Class - Week 2 - Frida Kahlo

I've painting my picture this past week, mostly on the face. I had to make some drastic adjustments to the positioning of her right eye. Now she looks more like Frida on the photo. I had to reschedule my erhu lesson to Thursday to come to class today. I took another student's spot since she is on vacation. Teacher said he may not have a spot for me to switch my time to when his student returns. I hope he can find an alternate time for me eventually since I really want to go to art class both Monday and Tuesday.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Art Class - Week 1

Last week, my mom joined an art class at the local senior center. She came home all excited with her first painting. It was a desert scene, done in acrylics. Not bad at all for a first painting. She said teacher helped her with the pencil sketch and she painted it herself. Apparently, this class is not limited to seniors only. Needless to say, I wanted to check it out. And that's what I did today! Delko came with us too. The teacher's name is Fred Alvarado, and the class had about a dozen people today. As I walked in, I can see people painting on their canvases. There wasn't a particular theme or anything. Everyone was just doing their own thing. After signing up for the class, teacher told me to get a canvas and bring it to him so he can sketch a desert scene for me. I told him I didn't want to do the same thing as my mom and if I can sketch something else myself. He asked me what I wanted to sketch, and I told him I had no idea, and if he could suggest something. Well, he handed me a stack of pictures and told me to look through that for ideas. I showed the pictures to Delko and we were trying to decide what to pick. I told Delko that I shouldn't be too ambitious and pick something too hard since this is my first painting in class. Fred, who was helping another student, overheard me and without turning around, he said, "No, be ambitious!" I was surprised, but I said ok. Finally I found the picture I'm going to use. It's a photo of Frida Kahlo. When teacher saw it, he said, wow, that's ambitious! By the end of class, I almost finished my sketch. Teacher seemed very surprise when he saw it. He said it was beautiful and held it up for the class to see. He said, "I didn't help her with the sketch, she did it herself." I'm just relieved it was alright. It's not exactly like Frida in the photo, so I will probably be tweaking it as I'm painting. Teacher said I have to help him with the sketching for the other students from now on. We'll see how that goes! After all, I'm there to learn. I'm simply overjoyed to be in an art class. There are many talented people, but most importantly, you can see they love painting. I can't wait to go again next time. It will have to be 2 weeks from now since they're closed on Memorial Day.