I was seeking my next art instructor on upcoming journeys southwest and was reviewing the type of medium that I wanted to explore. And, in doing so I realized that my mother, Ginny Graves, really had a pretty good idea about how she had worked with people, specifically, children people in exploring first their creativity in drawing as a mode of expression. That is, instead of describing things in words, she would instruct to draw a picture. And, then, “tell me about your picture.”
So, the early tools were crayons, pencils, markers, and used line as expression.
Next came paint.
As with everyone, I started both with pre-school art classes at the Nelson and in grade school with those powdered tempera artista paints. I can still smell that smell, because I always thought it smelled a little bit like, for want of a better word, barf. Well, I think that’s what it was, but maybe it was just that shaved sawdust like stuff they sprinkled over it when a person got sick all over their food tray in the lunchroom (me. I’ll never forget it and how everyone recoiled in horror, tripping over the lunchroom bench to get away with disdainful “eeeyyeeewwwwhoooaaahhhyuuuuuckkkk!”). By the time I helped my mom with her classes at Corinth library, they were pre-mixed in little plastic squeeze bottles so the mixing we had to do at Cedar Roe Branch of the Johnson County librairies was a thing of the past.
This was my finest work from that painting period. It is a picture of me at the Prairie Village Art Fair where I won first prize.
First Prize, Prairie Village Art Fair. Topsy’s by Paula Adams.
And, I pretty much stuck with this style and used it in books for French classes I taught in my mid-20s, shower invitatations, Christmas cards and maps. It’s basically just a bit of embellishment on the stick figure, and it’s worked pretty well for me on many occasions. As long as I can draw a circle and lines, I pretty well had the figurative part covered as far as I was concerned and moved on into the details which are what I really liked. All the little patterns, squiggles, repeats, and organization of whatever the topic might be. Achieving order in organizing detail, that’s what it was all about. In thinking of all of these things, I may have to do a blog post showcasing this fine body of line d’oeuvres.
I really don’t remember any other painting or drawing classes that I took in public school education. I’m sure I had some in grade school, but I mostly have remnants of that with clay objects. All of my drawing really came from home and from “work” when I was called upon to be the guinea pig for an upcoming workshop she was teaching, article she was writing, or book for which she needed an illustration. I loved this job, and if I could have someone put me to work like this right now, giving me some framework, supplies, task and a purpose I would feel I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s my job now, and I’m only just now realizing how wonderful it was to be gainfully employed with a sense of purpose while growing up.
I had my second formal painting class after I had Lace. The first was when I had worked with oils in a sort of “academic” class that my mother had found for me with a private teacher on Johnson Drive when I was in high school. She had a real bunny, and I modeled a Durer like rabbit, painted a cezanne-like-but-rounder Granny Apple Still life in oils, and learned some basics on making things look “real”, that is “realistic” by using line, shadow, and light sources. We worked dark to light, as I did in later classes, with the white being the “high” spots from which light reflected and applied last to bounce off the rounded apple forms.
Because I had studied art history, this kind of learning of structure behind form, technique, and use of light and shadow was really important to me to be exposed to; to me, it was “old school”. My mother had worked on the “creativity” part in providing the best atmosphere for “play” throughout my grade school and Jr. high years. She put me and others around artists doing art through visiting their workshops. I am very glad that she did this part first, because the technique and skill of the craft is a lot of work and can be both intimidating and limiting. Regardless of any opinion of whether or not it’s mandatory to get the “Beaux Arts” training, it was something that I needed for my own self-confidence. The basic KU drawing classes ABS 101 and 102 built upon this ability to use line, with of course the favorite monday class “Nudes of All Shapes and Sizes and Ages of KU Drama Majors Needing Extra Income.”
When I first learned to paint in oils, I think I only did about ten paintings. I’m fond of them. The choice of using oils, for me, was often a time factor in projects that were sandwiched in-between degrees and jobs and driving of kids both in daily country commutes and intra-state then for our cross-country secondary education for the Adams. That is, finding blocks of time, studio setup and takedown, portability and the drying time necessary with oils later became a challenge. So, as teaching, architecture school, work, cowboy cooking and family life changed, so did the medium to acrylics when I finally had a minute to return to paint one spring and crank out the “Dead Dog’s Portrait Gallery” Series.
These are the three “types” of oil paintings I did in class with Steve Heckmann at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kansas.
- a “landscape” of sorts that was a painting of Monet’s gardens at Giverny. I visited their with my Grandmother in summer 1980.
- a still life of artichokes from a picture in a French market that same summer.
- the last was the first of a series of pug portraits, one for my parents, my sister, and finally one of my own two dogs.
The last oil I did was that of Lace with our black pug Mei Rose on a kilim stool which I showed in a blog post this year before Christmas entitled “what is real?” So, I had classified myself as the bourgeois painter of middle class subject matter in theme.
So, back to my pursuit of a mentor-painter-teacher. After learning I could not paint with Stephen Kilborn (watercolors) in Taos, I found a woman in Tucson who I knew would fit the bill when I saw her work. I sent her my history, my portfolio, my mini life story and waited for a response.
And, it was exactly the conversation I dreamed of having when she called. My pictures had said a thousand words, my story gave all the depth of family history in arts and angst. She embraced me and invited me to come and join her regular classes when I was in town. I am very grateful and so pleased she took me in, to get back into the classic oil medium and put brush in my hand. She applauded the academic efforts while acknowledging both my timidity and need for a nudge from the nest to express.
Though this painting was done in acrylic, which forces a different speed with quick drying times, it best expresses what I think will be my challenge and task in the upcoming month at this class. That is, to be free and paint happy.
Trey portrait with Trey in shadow looking on. by Paula Graves Adams.
It doesn’t mean it has to be perfect or done. That is the beauty of oil which can be re-worked.
And I would now be able to return to my mother’s original encouragement to express.
I’d earned the right to clothe my canvas in the elegant fabric of oils, but this time with folly.
Follow