Painting Koi and Water Lilies



I was so nervous about this class. I am so insecure when it comes to taking classes although I have taken so many but especially when it involves painting. As I entered the classroom, I was surprised to find nine other students. I knew the teacher, Sylvia, because we had taken the Su-Mi classes together. She is marvelous and so calming. I had even had a nightmare last week about this class in which I forgot to go to the first class and was so far behind everyone else.

 

We went around and introduced ourselves. Sylvia had a bunch of her paintings and also photos for us to pick what we wanted to work on. I picked the painting you see in the photo above.

The first step was to sketch out the scene. Not only does painting intimidate me but so does drawing. Yikes! I was so nervous and really struggled to draw this. It took me a couple of hours with a lot of erasing going on. Then we applied masking liquid to the areas we wanted to mask.

Next was to start the painting. The plastic wrap was a technique that my teacher had learned from a student of hers and was a great way to create texture.

This is what it looked like after it dried and the plastic wrap was removed. I had a great time but the three hours flew by and I came home pretty exhausted. I am determined to conquer this painting fear, so the lessons will continue. I also signed up for a Su-Mi class in December. It's not with my old teacher but her teacher, Susan Frame.

My final koi class is Wednesday and I'm excited to see how this turns out.