For the Fun of It - painting class with Laura Bifano
a great way to spend a sunday morning
Happy Holiday weekend if you’re in the States!~ It’s Thanksgiving- which means a 4 day weekend. In Canada, Thanksgiving is much earlier in October. I’d say the only benefit to having Thanksgiving a little later is that it makes the perfect turning point to put up Christmas decorations. But maybe it’s better if they go up in November- which maybe I’ll do next year.
Anyway, one thing that I’ve been thinking about is the 2 week schedule, while definitely easier on my time, has made it harder to remember when to do my substack. I really do like the once a week newsletter- but maybe it’s also too much in your inbox? What do you think?
For this weekend, I wanted to gush about the art class I just finished taking with Warrior Art Camp! I had been eyeing Laura Bifano’s class, “Stylizing on the Fly”, ever since she taught it. Warrior Art Camp has amazing workshop curriculum, all taught online so it’s easy to take from wherever you are (in fact- I was hoping to take another class in January but it sold out!).
It’s been ages since I’ve actually taken a long form painting class- I think the last one I took was an oil painting class maybe 10 years ago. Not that I haven’t painted- I’ve painted all my books traditionally with gouache, and I love watercolor. But it turns out painting class is my happy place. Maybe a little unsurprising, since that was the first type of art I have took when I knew I wanted to do art, and I’ve always taken workshops here and there.
Also surprisingly, the topic of this class was plein air landscape painting- something I feel like I’ve struggled with since I’ve started doing art.
Class was every Sunday, and we had plenty of homework!! My favorite part was doing the black and white illustrations- “notan”, which was a new concept for me. (I’d done silhouettes for character design, but only grayscale value studies for landscapes!).
Simplifying made landscape painting feel FUN, and more like design and illustration than I’d ever felt while looking at landscapes!!
I would absolutely recommend Laura’s class when it’s next available, or any of the Warrior Art Camp classes. For me, it was fun to take something not quite in my field of study (storyboarding or kids book illustration), to see how it could influence my art. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to go out and do more plein air studies!
My final assignment was the tree outside our home (beloved by cats), and this building across from Jurassic Magic.
Hope you all have a lovely week! I might be back next week… or the week after… WHO KNOWS!
ok love u bye
Very cool and inspiring! I have been itching to get out the paints, so this is creative fuel. Re: newsletter frequency…i’m always for “less is more”, the general numbers of newsletters are too much to keep up with (for just me?).
Sounds like a great class and it looks like you had a brilliant time. 😁