Watching Paint Dry
I can distinctly remember one of the most exciting days in art class my freshman year of high school was when we sat with a printed out piece of paper with a painting we liked on it and tried to paint what we saw.
I loved finding all of the little secret details and trying to capture them on my own paper. That experience pales dramatically to what I witnessed at The Brandywine River Museum of Art.
On April 25th, five art students and their instructor, Neil Carlin, came to the museum ready for an experience that would make many a painter jealous. Carlin, who was recently commissioned to do the official portrait of the Holy Family for the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, also runs a school of 35 full and part-time students in Kennett Square. His students vary in age and experience from local high school students working on drawing to older students transitioning into the arts from another career. I could see the range in ages of Carlin’s students by the five advanced students that he brought with him that day to the museum.
Carlin and his students set up their easels and oil paints in the Museum’s classroom and prepared to paint. Unlike my experience with the poorly printed paper, Carlin’s students did not work from a mere image. Instead, an original N.C. Wyeth panting was carefully brought in and set up on an easel before the students.
The work, The Battle of Glens Falls, is one of my favorite N.C. paintings. Dynamic and full of energy, the painting truly evokes the imagination. It shows two men grappling on the ledge of a waterfall. A knife lies on the ground in front of them and the viewer can sense the tension as the men fight nearing closer and closer to the edge. It truly is an amazing painting to see and certainly a great one to try and paint.
When I entered the classroom, the small group of painters had already been working for some time. They were intently looking from their own canvas and boards to the N.C. painting located in the front of the room. I listened to their easy, informative conversation as I sat in on their class and paid attention as they pointed out little nuances I had never noticed before. “Did you notice…?” “Can you see…?” “Observe the…” With each observation they made, I would lean forward and try to see exactly what they were noticing. For the first time I observed how much blue was in the painting, how much light and darkness played with one another and the little spot of perfect blue which looks like it is taken right from the tube and applied to the canvas in one part of the work.
As I sat observing them work, I was able to watch as figures emerged from the backgrounds of the paintings. It was an incredible thing to see. Blotches of peach suddenly became strong muscles. Spots of red became a coat. Blues become cliffs and waterfalls. I had come to the classroom with a slew of projects to work on and instead I was held captive by what I was seeing before me.
There is something so exciting about watching artists at work. It involves the senses as you smell the oil paints, listen to the conversation, and see the work being created. For someone like me who finds painting to be a real challenge it was a treat to watch these six people in front of me make it look so effortless and fun. Whoever said something was as boring as watching paint dry never got to witness this!