Art class

For the first time since arriving in Argentina I was able to fully enjoy my art classes. I am scheduled for about 12 hours of class a week, but the way things work here it is more like 9 hours of class. Things tend not to start on time; there are coffee and mate (a local tea) breaks, and plenty of chit chat. I had been entirely too preoccupied to focus during art class. I was unable to conjure the patience to sit and enjoy the soothing motions of paint to brush and brush to paper. But recently I have found a calm. The brass band in my head has ceased crashing away at the symbols and started playing the soothing chill out bongo beats of the Caribbean, thus I spent every available minute of art doing just that, art.

I thought that I lacked sufficient interest to pursue art as a hobby. The issue in fact had been a cerebral traffic jam concerning my tangled thoughts. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy sitting and painting, drawing with pastels, or moving charcoal across blank paper. I learned a lot this week. I took my acrylic paints to Tuesday’s class which is held at a public space that hosts an artisan market on weekends. This is my favorite teacher; she is most attentive, amicable, and entertaining. She taught me how to mix paints and provided ideas on how to paint the landscape before me. Today, Wednesday, I went to my other class. This class is solely painting. It is at the public art school and the attendees are a group of thirty older woman. This same group of women attends Monday’s drawing class at the same university. I took with me my realist painting of a mountain landscape with the intent of finishing up. I struggled to make earth brown and asked for some assistance. The professor came over and the next thing I knew my painting had became impressionistic. My finely formed clouds and flowers were swept away by the professors brush strokes into a mix of swirling colors.

One of the ladies came over to me afterwards and said she hates how the professor does that. Just takes the brush and swipes it across your page. The ladies are a lot of fun and all very friendly. While I was a bit unnerved by how the teacher had wantonly changed my work, I did learn a handful of new ideas and tactics for painting.