Week 5: Stretcher Bars and Free Form Color

This week the students are continuing with the stretcher building process while they work on their next assignment, free form color paintings. This has been a week dedicated to working in class rather than to instruction.
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Jennifer typically will introduce new elements of painting with each new assignment.  these last two weeks, the focus has been on color.  For their free form painting assignment, they have been instructed to use complimentary colors to create a compelling composition having less to do with representation and more to do with the use of color, saturation, and shape to create an overall mood.  I've so far appreciated the way she will introduce a new element of painting using slides and examples from art history and then have an assignment tailored to that particular element.  This gives students the opportunity to learn some art history, learn through doing, and doesn't overwhelm them too much with either too much information too soon, or an assignment they can't feel confident in doing because they don't have the basics down yet.  

While students are working on their paintings, she is having them, one to two at a time, do the next steps in their stretcher building.  They are cutting their bars at a 45 degree angle to make two 16x20 inch frames and then having them glue and screw the pieces together.  Learning to building stretchers is a very important fundamental of any painters education and it's nice to see it being taught in an entry level course.