Sadly, my Pet Portrait class has come to an end. Boo! However, I did enjoy the class a lot and got to try out a new medium. Yea!

My favorite part about taking a community education class was that it focused on learning and what you want to get out of the class. I feel that traditional education is too focused on grades and instead of fulfilling yourself, you are learning the teacher and their expectations and adjusting for that. The learning tends to be a by-product, if it happens, and not the focus. (Of course, that could just be me and my desire for good grades. Yikes!)

Anyway. I’m glad that I got to experiment with Gouache and got some nice artwork out of the process. I also feel that I now have the best animal artwork I have ever done. Usually, my animals are out of proportion and their faces tend to look flat. Even though we didn’t spend a lot of time on animal anatomy, the time we did spend was really helpful. Not to mention, Alison’s (class instructor) tips and tricks for how she deals with drawing different areas of different animals. If you have the time, I would highly recommend Painting the Pet Portrait at MCAD.

The portrait below is of my cat Johnny. I agonized over whether I should show the reference photo or not. (If you see the reference photo, it might not be as impressive!) But since it’s a part of the art process and shows how I dealt with the drawing and painting, I thought it was good to see. This was created using acrylic paint on watercolor paper.

Now that my class is over, what will I be up to next?