Once my quote was approved I decided to do a site visit and test out my video camera and computer equipment connecting to their projector. Luckily I did as I needed to buy a mini HDMI to HDMI connector to get it all working.

My idea was to paint as normal and project a live stream of this onto the wall, so I didn’t have 16 people crowding around me making me way to nervous.

This was also beneficial as I could zoom into my artwork and everyone couldn’t see the fine details I was painting.

This worked out perfectly as I could paint and students could look up from their work and follow along without having to physically move from their own setup.

I thought it would be a good idea to create a few exercises so students could get used to the gouache paint and small brushes before painting the black swan.

This was well received as most people had never used gouache before.

I thought back to courses that I have taken in the past and I would try to learn by watching and listening while madly taking notes that I could never read when I got home.

So for me it was essential that I created some structured handouts that were broken down into steps of painting a swan. This enabled students to reference them in class and also read them once at home as a refresher.

I actually created a second set of course notes for painting a black and white magpie just incase this class was successful and I taught again.

Since I had to put a quote together I was trying to keep each students materials below the price of the class fee of $20.

Additional papers, folders and handouts were also included that were not in this photograph.

This was also a good exercise in costings for future classes that I may hold in the coming months that aren’t subsidised by the council.

My little show bag of goodies for people to use in class and take home.

Folder, Black paper, tracing paper, glassine paper, reference photo, double sided notes, fridge magnet with my web address. in addition to this extra paper for two painting exercises, a kneadable eraser and a pallet with gouache to take home and practice a new skill.

After my introduction and the course outline we went into the gallery to see a few of my artworks on display.

My Lizard, an eastern water dragon took around 50hrs to paint and is one of my most detailed works to date.

My watercolour tractor also sparked interest and the question was asked, would I be teaching a watercolour class in the future, hopefully yes.

Photo taken from exhibition opening night.

Since most people would not have used gouache and this was an introduction course I decided that we would start the lesson with two exercises.

First, a colour exercise to get students used to painting on black card and seeing how much the paint seeped into the paper. This surprised a few people as they couldn’t believe when the paint colour disappeared.

Four dashes of paint were placed on the paper with a wet brush. Then the first three were panted a second time and then the first two a third time and the first one a fourth time. This built up the layers of paint.

The second exercise was getting a feel for different brushes and using the width, edge and tip of the brush.

First using wet paint then using the same order of brushes but with very little water and an almost dry brush. Last of the brush exercises, was an example of fixing a mistake. Add three dabs of paint and removing one quickly with a paper towel then the last one with a wet brush and paper towel.

My table setup for teaching the class using the same materials the students were.

The video camera was setup directly above my workspace and projected onto the wall so students could follow along in realtime as I explained my swan painting process.

This is the finished black swan artwork that my course was based on.

I chose another photograph of the swan that I had taken a few seconds later so it had a slightly different pose to my previous painting and my prints.

There is more detail in this artwork because it took me over 12hrs to paint as apposed to the 4hrs I taught in class.

This is my black swan from class after I worked on it for a few hours at home.

What I didn’t realise in class was the swans head was much closer to the water than the previous swan I had been copying. So its head and bill needed to go into the reflection.

It just goes to show sometimes you can’t see the obvious even if its right in front of you.