painting class; life

so i just have to say that i LOVE my painting class. I LOVE IT.  alright, so i've only had a few classes so far, but every time i go, i increasingly feel really disappointed when it's the end of the class. it's a 3 hour class, but it goes by incredibly fast. it feels more like an hour.

so the paintings we've been doing have been more like warm-up paintings instead of real, spending-lots-of-time-to-make-it-perfect paintings. the first one we did, we had to bring in 2 objects from home, and we just used three colors to paint it: ivory black, titanium white, and yellow ochre. so i brought in a glass bottle with a funky shape, and one of my old cameras.  while the class paints, the teacher goes around and talks to each student about their painting, giving us advice, and sometimes takes our brushes and starting to paint your picture himself. pretty much the whole time i was painting, he barely stopped to give me advice at ALL.  then at the end of class on the second day of painting the picture, he smiled at my painting and jokingly asked if i was planning on chopping my ear off that weekend. then he told me he thought i didn't have to do anything more and that i was done. so that was that.

the next painting we had to do was in color, and we all had to bring in fruits or vegetables.  so i brought in a pear, and i was fighting so much with it. i was all nervous before class and i feel like i got self-conscious and nervous about painting after the success of the first one for some reason, maybe because i stupidly thought that he liked my first painting so much, now the pressure's on.  so i was having loads of trouble just painting a measly pear, and he was giving me advice, then i'd work on it more, then at the end of class he basically was like, "i think you had it nailed before, but you overworked it and kept going," and basically fixed it for me. as much as it was a little frustrating, i STILL didn't want the class to end, i just wanted to start another painting and do better.  then when everyone was getting ready to leave, he came over and.talked to me about the pear painting. i told him i felt like should've taken a break when he told us to, and given my eyes a rest and come back to it with fresh eyes and perhaps a better idea of what to do. he agreed and basically told me he's been painting for years and how he knows that sometimes it gets frustrating. then he told me he thought that what happened was i got a big head after the "remarkable success" of my first painting and this one came back and basically fucked with me, hahaha. he didn't say it to be mean, he was being playful but i totally got what he meant. then i laughed and was like, "well, now i'm humble again. please teach me to paint!" hahaha

i really like my teacher a lot and i feel so lucky to be in an actual class and learning about how to do something i LOVE doing anyway. this is my first official painting class and i already feel so enriched and like what i'm learning is invaluable. i can't even express how much i'm enjoying it. the other day i was thinking about how disappointing it'll be when the class is over, but it's only september! i still have loads of time in this class!

oh, and here's my teacher's website, it's pretty freakin' phenomenal, and truthfully, a bit intimidating:

http://peterwaite.com/