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Friday, March 29, 2013

Still life painting with Melody Boggs at JCCFS


I don't paint many still life paintings and when I chose this class I had that in mind. Every year I visit the John C. Campbell Folk School to take a class. Even though I paint all the time I don't always take a painting class. The first year I took blacksmithing, then painting, then two years of woodturning and a couple times in "guest" status to just do plein air painting. So Still life painting class almost seemed like a new venture to me. The week was a cold one this March, but the painting studio was warm and a good place to get down to work. The instructor was Melody Boggs from Atlanta, Georgia who has had decades of experience in still life. Melody does a fully developed monochromatic layout of the subject on the canvas before adding color, which I don't usually do, but it worked well. Even though I paint all the time, it took me two paintings before I got comfortable. Melody, with all her experience, is really helpful composing the painting, adding and subtracting objects, colors and sizes to make a really nice composition. Added to that, she is all about the student, spending time to help those who need assistance the most or giving suggestions and critique to someone like me who has had a lot of experience...in her words, "miles of painting". The pictures.....Melody in the art class, one of my setups and paintings in progress, some of the paintings the class did on a shelf in the classroom and then the finale held Friday afternoon in the auditorium, plus one more of my works, a single piece of pottery done on the last day in just two hours. Next year, what will I do at JCCFS? Not sure yet, but the rest of this year I will be doing more still life thanks to Melody, a really fine instructor.

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