jean burman

Sunset Flying South – watercolor © 2009 Jean Burman

Last week I bumped into a workshop participant from my “Watercolor Like WOW” workshop last year.

I was coming out of the supermarket… and he was walking in.  It’s always so great to run into other artists away from the usual context of paint and paper and palettes etc.

But predictably…it doesn’t take long after the first hello… for the conversation to come right back around to painting!  I hadn’t seen him since the workshop and had wondered for a whole year why he hadn’t come to the last class in the series. 

I take what I do pretty seriously… and you do kind of wonder if you’ve taught something that ran contrary… or whatever.

Running into him again gave me the chance to ask… and I’ve got to admit… I was a little bit taken aback by his answer.

“Oh I don’t know”… he said.

“It just seemed to me to be such a waste of paint!”

I was speechless for a moment… but promptly covered it up. 

Thoughts whirled.

“Hang on. Was he saying that what I loved to do more than anything else in the whole wide world was… [insert drum roll here] a waste of paint?  No no… I must have misunderstood. Or was he indeed saying that… and I was just not getting it? OMG they make pills for this sort of thing… (((chuckles)))

My mind was now running riot like runaway paint flowing out of control across a watercolor sheet… as I magnanimously acknowledged that yes… pouring paint was not for everyone! [grin]

Then after talking some more… I finally got it.  He was an artist who was used to being in perfect control… an engineer by profession… a beautiful painter of birds in intricate and precisely detailed realism. Of course he might have been challenged by the process. Who wouldn’t be?

I’ve been in that position myself.  I know what it feels like to be in a class where the teacher’s methods run contrary to our own artistic ideals!

Malcolm Beattie at Art Escape – Winter in the Tropics

Malcolm Beattie’s workshop was the worst… [and Malcolm if you're reading this... you know I'm only joking and I do so love you still LOL] but I’ll be blowed if I will ever get used to “contiguous painting”… no matter how many times you might have “called me out” from the back row… sorry mate it’s simply not in me (((chuckles)))

Peter Griffen at Art Escape – Winter in the Tropics

And to my old pal Peter Griffen. Peter you saved my watercolor life. Even though you don’t even teach watercolor.  But you taught me how to squeeze out the paint and slap it on… adding texture with the soles of your paint splattered crocs!

And when you introduced me to your favorite outsize brush… [the likes of which I had never seen before] and slopped it into that giant pot of glistening black paint… [also unheard of in watercolor]… that infernal thing had to be prised out of my hand at the end of the week! (((chuckles)))

Peter… I may never actually wear a pair of crocs… but honestly… the marks you left with them upon the hearts of your students shall not be easily forgotten.  You taught me to relax… to stop being so precious… and regardless of the medium… to yield to the process. And for that I [for one] shall be eternally grateful! [grin]

Cro Magnon Man – a magnificent waste of paint LOL © 2008 Jean Burman

So… is it a waste of paint?  To go to a workshop and come out with [by our usual standard] a whole bunch of failures?  Or is it par for the course?  The price we must pay to stretch… from the heart right out to the tip of our brush… and take learning up the steep slippery slope that leads to the next level?

I don’t know.  For me the jury’s out.  But I never went to a workshop where I didn’t learn something.  Even if I bucked and squirmed and kicked and argued with myself all the way through it.

Yes… I’m afraid I will always know how to do it better! [teehee]

But I guess there is always something we can learn from others… even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time… and even if we might secretly hate them for it after… [just kidding... I could never hate anyone... and artists never hate other artists... that would be anti nature [grin] because artists are collectively some of the coolest people on the planet LOL]

Feel free to leave me a note.  Tell me about your favorite workshop experience… or just any old funny paint story will do!  [even house paint has its moments!] LOL

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