Second Art Class

I don't think I enjoyed this art class any more than the previous one. We did the lesson that we were supposed to do last week with the black and white paint. The lesson was on value. Here's my finished product:

Before we did this, we did what the instructor calls "gesturals." Each of the class members went to the front and struck a pose. Then the rest of us had two minutes to sketch her with fine charcoal, looking at our paper as little as possible. I actually enjoyed that part of the class more than anything as I think I probably have more sketching talent than painting talent. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of my gesturals as they are on the back of my value study above. As you can see, it's still a little wet. Not only that, but light sketching on charcoal probably wouldn't show up well on camera. Especially not when it's got wet black paint on the reverse side.
After doing the value study, we had to do a still life in grayscale. For your information, I really do not like most still life pictures. We were not to add any perspective, so here's my result:

It was a fish-shaped bowl and a spoon. And we could do anything we wanted with the background. On the right is my value study I completed at home. However, I used math for calculating the colours and ended up with too much dark. How did I use math, you ask? Well the first square is 8/8 white, the next square is 7/8 white, followed by 6/8 white and so on down to 8/8 black. Quite different from the one I did in class today, but you can still tell that they are all different colours. 
So far, my paintings for class are so kindergarten-ish. I suppose I shouldn't feel bad about that since a lot of the so-called great painters' works look pretty kindergarten-ish as well. And speaking of great painters, the instructor has a computer projecting on the screen at the front of the class, so while we are working, she will look up different artists and display their work. She asks us which artists we want to see. I'm not sure who decides what great art is, but most of it is not so great to me. A lot of it looks like just blobs of paint on a canvas. Seriously, I really do like Thomas Kinkade's paintings, but the instructor just ignored me when I mentioned him. I know they're not considered great art. But they are so pretty. And peaceful. I would like to just walk into one of them and never come back. And they certainly are popular. Obviously, "the people" think they are pretty great. It's the artistic authorities (whoever they are) that have determined that they are not great art. Perhaps they are just jealous that Thomas Kinkade's art actually sells. 
So I asked for Glen Loates. The instructor didn't even know who he is. But she did google him and bring up some of his images. I don't think she really likes art that actually looks like what it's supposed to look like. But I do. If I had the choice between hanging a Van Gogh or a Kinkade in my living room, I'd definitely pick the Kinkade. Or the Loates or the Bateman. Currently, I have some of my daughter's and my mother's paintings in my living room. And that's good enough for me. 
Here's my very first painting (I'm not counting the lesson paintings that I did for class):

I actually completed it last night. It's a Painted Trillium. Not great, but not bad for my first attempt. I didn't do this for class, either. I just did it because I wanted to do it. And I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than that horrible thing I did for my first class. 

Anyway, I have also enrolled in a couple of painting classes on Craftsy. I think I will probably enjoy them more than my night school class. We'll see. I thought after I left class tonight: "Only 4 more classes to go. I'm 1/3 of the way through." LOL. That's pretty sad to feel that way about a class that I'm supposed to be taking for fun.

Meanwhile, Mystery developed an eye problem - he was actually bleeding from his eye. So I had to take time off work to take him to the vet today. Now I'm having to put eye drops in twice daily. But the eye already looks much better. I've got a follow up appointment October 1st.