let's get steamy

 I've heard about people painting in the steam plant on campus, but I'd never been inside it until today. The Teach was telling us not to touch the pipes that run along the walkway because they're super hot and he didn't want any of our hands to burn off.

We started by painting the outside. Today I took pictures of what I was painting before I painted it in order to show you guys what liars us painters can really be.

My representation of the outside of the steam plant is not really like what it actually looks like. The idea is to simplify your painting into a few shapes, because if you try to paint everything that's in front of you you'll be sitting there painting until Kingdom Come.

Therefore, cut stuff out. And also, feel free to move stuff around or ignore other things all together. Painting can be really fascinating for this reason. It's art and therefore it's the artist's interpretation of a place. We're more concerned with capturing the mood of a place (something photos can't do!) than we are with getting every detail right.

(I like todays paintings better than the ones I did yesterday. However, I'm gonna crop the outside painting because when I took off the tape, it tore my paper a little bit. Plus, I don't feel like the bottom half (where it tore) is as strong as the upper half, so boom! Gone.)

We moved inside the steam plant, which was a lot nicer than being outside in the rain. Not only is it very warm, but also very diverse as far as what you can paint and the angles from which you can choose to paint it.

I went up three flights of stairs and sat next to this beautiful red pipe. It was love at first sight.

And I'm rather proud of what I accomplished. I think I just could spend every rainy day painting inside the steam plant.