This WAW was pretty small, it was at my house, Melanie, with Joan, Audrey and Jen. I made lasagna with a salad and some Italian bread. And Audrey and Jen brought fresh fruit and cream for dessert. I’ve been attending WAW for a few months now and there are a couple things that have kept coming up and I thought I would mention some of them today.

Under Paintings

I don’t typically do under paintings. I don’t have the patience; I just want to dive right in. The only under painting I sometimes have is when I paint over a previous painting I didn’t like. Some members always paint under paintings. Some of their under paintings I LOVE and want them to stop painting and just leave it how it is. Joan and I had a whole conversation about this, one of her under paintings I loved and told her to leave it alone; she said I would like it better when she was finished. When she finished, while I did like the end result, I still preferred the under painting to the finished version. I think this comes down to personal aesthetic. I liked the colorful, semi-abstract under painting. I think it’s expressive and colorful and loose.

Less is More

Sometimes you just have to know when to stop. Painting in acrylic is difficult because you can keep changing and repainting and fixing every little detail of your painting until you drive yourself crazy. It’s very important to be able to realize when to stop. Most people in the group are professional artists so they have mastered this art of when to stop. However, sometimes it’s still hard and in our group painting setting it’s great to have other artist’s there to get a 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th opinion on whether you are truly finished or not.

Trying to Figure Out What to Paint

 Every week once we finish dinner we face the task of deciding what to paint! One time Audrey came with a finished painting she had done earlier in the day, just so she would have a finished product at the end of the night, and it wouldn’t be as stressful to decide what to paint. Typically we look around the host’s home to see if there are any interesting objects to paint. This week in particular Audrey painted some tomatoes on the vine I had on my counter, Joan had brought a photograph she took to work from and Jen drew inspiration from a magazine I had laying around. I always feel stressed out when it comes time to decide what to paint. The possibilities are endless. I also want to be able to finish the painting within the night or at least within 2 weeks. Lately I’ve looked at WAW as a way to test out my ideas for other art work I want to do. It helps to execute the idea in paint to get an idea of the end result. I am not a painter. Yes I can paint but it is not my preferred medium, printmaking is and glass (fused and stained). Both are very process based and you have to go through many steps before you get the finished product so I find it very helpful to experiment in paint with my ideas I want to execute in printing or glass.

The Importance of Good Food

 Enough said.