All the colours of the rainbow in two hours or less

The Humboldt & District Gallery was alive with colour on March 6 during the first introduction to painting workshop with local artist and teacher, Grant McConnell.

“The best part was seeing people go quiet and get concentrated in their own kind of collaboration between their imagination and the materials at hand,” said McConnell. “At one point, when you looked around the room, there was high concentration and it was people enjoying themselves. That’s what really makes me happy on a night like tonight.”

One might say that most of the night was spent in concentration since McConnell first started by showing people the basics of how to create a colour palette using primary colours and water to make light and dark shades. In a step-by-step process, he gradually increased the difficulty of what people had to do or create while explaining some basic skills and techniques people could employ. Before their final project, he had everyone write down the fundamentals: line, shape, colour, and value.

“It’s a balance that I try to draw out of the student. One part of that balance is attention to some of the fundamentals, the elements of art and principles of design,” said McConnell. “On the other side, I think it’s really important for someone to feel liberated when making a work of art, which means something that is from themselves and once again has to do with personal expression to give that feeling of the ability to create something that you’ve drawn from your own view of the world.”

Since McConnell only had two hours to work with, he had a very limited amount of time to teach people the fundamentals while also giving them enough time to work on their final project. The final assignment consisted of him taking out a different object or figurine for each pair of people to observe and then paint based on their perspective. They had to think about the technical aspects of lines, shapes, colours, and values while also using their imagination to balance those things out. It was quite a bit different from the start when he just asked students to look at a picture and draw a simple black outline of a tree over strokes of colour.

“The easy part is when I’m saying just put a brush load of colour on the picture plate, which you start off freely and easily and don’t think too much … sometimes thinking gets in the way and you don’t want too much of that too early,” said McConnell. “As the evening progressed, there was a little more of an expectation to work with either something that is representational or realistic, something that might require a little more of a balance between (the fundamentals and imagination).”

By the end of the night, even two people who were right next to each and looking at the exact same object ended up with vastly different works of art. It was what McConnell had been hoping for and he said he hopes the class has encourage people to keep trying and creating art.

“I hope they feel compelled to make the next painting, which means they have enough confidence and enjoyment from they’ve done tonight that they feel again compelled (to paint),” he said. “What I usually say is your next painting is almost by definition your best painting and so that’s what I hope they take home with them tonight.”