John Murray classes Monday Nov. 22

Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday classes only this week.
The NewArt Center is closed all day on wednesday.
Acrylic and Oil Workshop and Post Modern Assemblage:
try developing an image based on the Northeast American Indian. For instance, the Wampanoag people from their postmodern casinos back to Metacom and King Philips War to the tribal culture before European contact...
a tragic and fascinating history full of objects and carvings of great power.
see you Monday...john.

John Murray classes week of Nov. 15, 2010

All classes this week: Matisse again.

i can't get enough of this brillant artist, a constant inspiration to me.

His "French Window at Collioure" from 1915 is a redux of a 1905 painting, "Collioure", which is full of color and redolent with a rich range of floral and nautical Fauvism.

In this work he discards all romance and decorativeness for stark mystery and viewer participation. This work predates the Minimalist paintings of the late 1960's and 1970's by more than half a century.

Try taking a complex decorative recent piece you have done and strip it to its essence. See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of Nov. 8, 2010

All classes:
Consider the psycholgical evidence
available to you in your work.
Not in content, but in the process of painting, drawing and assembling the work.
Witness this great Matisse picture, Portrait of Olga Merson from 1911:
here Matisse used layering, scraping, scumbling and bold line to reveal his
mental state and feelings about the subject, a woman with whom he had been in difficult relationship.
Try a work yourself, any subject or an abstraction and stay aware of the medium as language and signifier.
See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of november 1, 2010

This week all painting classes please try a series of small canvases (approx. 12"x 12") using the acrylic paint mixtures we worked with last week.

Try a self portrait, a metaphor and landscape for instance.

Postmodern Assemblage:

Please bring a sheet of plastic and a gallon of acrylic gel. we will try a poured thick acrylic bas relief.

See you next week, john.

John Murray Classes week of Oct.25

Poured acrylic workshop.

If you want to work with a new way of using acrylic paint and medium i will work with you this week.

It requires some specific supplies; however.

1. At least a gallon of acrylic gel.

2. Acrylic paint tubes or jars of color.

3. 4-6 clean empty plastic buckets (with lids is preferable).

4. A stretched canvas and/or a sheet of 2 mil clear poly (drop cloth).

5. a few empty plastic squeeze bottles.

i would like to work with all classes on this and hope all will be able to participate.

Thank you, see you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of October 18 2010

All classes: work a political idea into a painting or assemblage.
Use newspaper articles and attempt to make the plastic material as important as the message. Francis Bacon did on this famous Papal assault. although dry in use of paint the energy and striated brush strokes make this a great painting. Get mad!
See you next week, john.

Supercharged Painting Wed Oct. 13

Work with a landscape reference, but discard the picturesque.

Using some of the brush stroke work you developed last week see how little of the actual landscape you can retain and still feel the sense of nature you began with.

If you have a sketch book use a drawing from that or go out and work or sketch around the New Art Center to start the painting.

See you on wednesday.

-john.