Saturday, November 13, 2010

Painting Lessons 101

I visited an art exhibition in Armadale recently. That gave me an idea. Maybe I should try my hand at painting. After all, painting is not very different from photography. In fact they share a common root in the early years of photography in the late 18th century. In photography as it is in painting, the principles of light and composition are the same.

Of course, it takes a lot of skill and practice to paint portraiture or elaborate scenes. What if I start off with something simple? A sky, some trees, and some water will be enough to make a landscape picture. I looked into Youtube to see what tutorials are available. The search for "how to paint sky" yielded 5,090 results; "how to paint trees" yielded 4710 results, and "how to paint water" yielded 5290 results. A quick google search for "Artists' societies in Melbourne" shows the location of 10 such places. The activities in the club descriptions I have seen are similar to those in a camera club. One can learn to paint, participate in exhibitions, and watch demos by seasoned artists. It sounds like fun!