Barbara Schilling – Unlock the Passion: Using Texture, Color and Design to Create Energy and Emotion in Your Painting (Online); Wednesdays, November 6-20, 2024

Date: Wednesdays, November 6-20, 2024
Time: 10:00 AM-12:30 PM Pacific Time, 1:00-3:30 PM Eastern Time, 6:00-8:30 PM London Time
Level: All
Medium: All

Art has many voices. All artists bring something of themselves to their art even if unintentional. The more you create, the more defined your personal voice will become. In this 3-week exploration, discover many of the techniques that Barbara Schilling uses in her dynamic work to communicate a sense of energy in her paintings.

The first step is deciding what you want the viewer to “feel” when looking upon your work. For acclaimed artist Barbara Schilling,  communicating energy in her painting is her uppermost goal.  “While I do not feel constrained by categorizing my work, I will say I think it falls into a place that encompasses a bit of realism, impressionism, and expressionism…As creatives I think we should all look to expressing our own vision.” (Barbara Schilling)

Are you expressing joy? Sadness? Fear? Does your subject make you feel at peace or does it energize or haunt you? Brushwork, color palette, textures, design and composition can all be utilized to impart energy in your work, but it can be helpful to narrow down what the less obvious pull for you to your subject may be by making a list of words that describe your subject. You may think you are just painting a “pretty vase of flowers”, but what else describes them? Are they soft and delicate or bold and sassy, do you see the gentle turning of the petals or the starburst configuration of the shapes? Does it remind you of reading a book in front of a fire on a fall day or maybe a sunny joyful walk on a summer day? If you can figure those things out, it won’t matter what you are painting but rather the question of how you are going to paint it to convey that mood.