Wild Botanicals with Jennifer McHugh

Join us as we embrace the wild and colorful freedom of abstract botanicals! These gestural, playful abstracts will be created with acrylic paints on paper and canvas.

Using an intuitive approach, Jennifer will guide you as you create loose, layered abstractions inspired by the lines, shapes and patterns found in nature’s botanicals.

After some free sketching and painting on paper, we will move on to a small canvas then go big and wild! Our goal is staying loose and playful…allowing spontaneity and imperfection to bring our wild botanicals to life.

Join us as we explore:

• Making a cohesive color palette
• Creating very loose sketches
• Building spontaneous layers and lines
• Making a balanced composition
• Embracing the imperfect, not perfection
• Knowing when you’re finished with your abstract ‘Wild Botanical’

If you want to paint a one-dimensional still life floral, this class is not for you.

If you love artwork with energy, movement and loose lines, this is perfect for you!

By the end of the class, students will not only have a couple small works on paper and canvas, but also a very expressive large abstract painting to admire at home!

Supplies:

• a watercolor paper pad (9x12 size is good, but if you have something different at home, just bring it)
• one small canvas of your choice (12x12, 11x14 or 16x20 are good sizes, but bring what you have)
• one large canvas of your choice (minimum 24x24, no larger than 36”)
• primary colors, white, black, raw umber, and any other colors you have or love
• various sized brushes
• palette of choice
• quality paper towels or cotton rags