Art Class with Jane Aukshunas

I took an oil pastel art class this weekend up in Portland with the very talented Jane Aukshunas.  It was such a great class because it really pushed me beyond my comfort zone and defined the areas that I need to work on and push past (namely, abstract composition and loosening up).  I learned so much about working on different surfaces, what oil pastels can do, and mixing different mediums with oil pastels.  It was a 2 day class (10-3) but we really could have used another day!  

Come and visit Jane's website and see some of her fabulous art work featuring the beautiful Pacific Northwest!
http://janeaukshunas.com/

Jane's studio and some of her work:








There were 6 students in a u-shape around this center table.  Jane worked on the pieces with us.

Jane demonstrating cloud drawing.

Art work, Day 1

Art work, Day 2

My work space

First piece:

Working on primed tyvek (in this case, a postal office envelope).  Jane made me put away my sketching pencil and just go for it.  I used some hydrangeas in a bowl as inspiration.  The background, as usual, gave me problems, so I just went bold.  


Second piece:

Working on primed Tarpaper.  I used one of my photographs for color and composition.


Third piece:

This is Pellon (fabric interfacing) covered with a wax substance (that was like coconut oil).  I started with lines and circles and it became a pea pod.  I don't care for it.


Fourth piece:

We prepped this surface the first day.  It is Clayboard (has a very shiny white surface). and we primed it with acrylic paint (the orange on the right), watercolor drips (the yellow horizontal lines), and India ink (the black branch-type lines that I overlapped with white).  This proved to be the hardest piece for me.  The instructions were to "discover images and create depth, shapes, movement.."  I could not figure out what to do.  I tried to do big purple flowers but they looked juvenile rather than abstract so I smeared them and then went over the top with geometric shapes and then made background lines.  I didn't like that either so I scraped the entire things with a razor blade....as you can see most of it still remains.  The last thing that I did was go over the harsh black lines with white.  That was probably the best decision on the piece.  I am still stuck and have no idea what to do next.  I discovered that where I can kind of look at a still life and recreate it, I can't seem to loosen up enough to find flow throughout a piece and make shapes meaningful.  I don't know how to put "random" things together cohesively.  I spent a lot of the day today (maybe more than I actually painted) just looking at the piece and trying to visualize the next step.  


Fifth piece:

This was done on Artboard.  We put down masking tape to make shapes, carved in some shapes with a sharp tool, then put on a layer of oil pastel.  All the excess was wiped off and the tape lifted and put down to form a second layer (different placement).  We then went over the top with a complimentary color.  I added the red to define the edges a bit.  Once again, quite stiff and formal.  

I didn't get a chance to work on my 6th piece.  We took a masonite panel and covered it with a layer of drywall mud and then made different textures.  We did this on day one and then primed and painted on day two.  I decided that my layer was too heavily textured and it wasn't dry enough so I figured I will just sand it down at some point.  My plan was to work off of a another photograph.  

Jane had 2 other projects that we didn't quite get to.  I found I loved working on a variety of surfaces rather than plain ol' art paper!

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