It is all over now

That was it the last of my classes, my bank balance has heaved a sigh of relief as to get to the class I HAD to walk past COS on Long Acre, the best branch of this shop outside Berlin. The staff are lovely, very helpful, the space is generous and always laid out well with a better range of stock. All much to the detriment of my wallet.
I kept thinking "well it is only this month, just one more..." I am now counting the cost as it has come on top of Kitty's wardrobe revamp and Daisy's continual hand out. Next month, I keep saying that though and somehow it never happens. Plus I have a holiday to pay for, oh once again I feel a financial meltdown coming on...with no one to blame but myself.

So this was the penultimate painting, we had a new teacher whose voice and body language I loathed, she had an almost chimp like way of baring her teeth when she smiled, except it was not a smile but a point made sugar coated in arsenic.
Despite this I learnt a lot from her, I was able to take away and use small nuggets she had suggested and move my work forward. That said I did not enjoy this painting, It is my cup and saucer but I made a fundamental error by placing it on synthetically dyed tissue paper that I could not hope to replicate using pigment oils, still I tried and managed to resolve some of the issues and again experimented with applying paint only with a palette knife which produced another unctuous painting that will take months to dry.

Last night I painted this catastrophe. The tutor kept banging on about getting rid of the white so I created a green wash of colour. Sick of still life I decided to try painting from a photograph. Not a good idea because it was too small.

The first attempt at painting went horribly wrong, so I wiped it all off and started again. This time I used the long floppy brush that a lot of Japanese painters used. I was so irritated that I also dribbled paint and wiped paint with paper towels, all things I hate in the work of others. Strangely the painting became quite cathartic and I wished I could go back and keep trying different techniques like this. Trust me the full extent of this monstrosity is not apparent in the photograph!

I will try to find a class for next year far far away from Covent Garden. I have grown immensely as a painter and really want to keep going, but it is a real effort when the girls want me home. When I told them it was my last class they cheered!