On a very chilly January night, I began a “Beginner's Painting Class” – a ten-week course and Christmas present from Santa (my mom was intent that I would be subjected to “culture” and spent her hard-earned cash on trumpet lessons, tap dance lessons and now art lessons). The first two were abject failures; today I can’t blow a note nor do I have any rhythm. (However, I do have an electric keyboard that plays 50 songs by itself!)
The lessons took place in the teacher's home basement that was filled with easels, paint cans and laundry. In the center was a high table with a desk lamp. This was the “studio” of famed “artist” and industrial sign painter - Herschel S. Most of his work was seen on the sides of trucks and billboards along state highways but a few of his paintings could be viewed in our town public library, the YMCA lobby and a funeral home. When I started his class he was deep into his representational still life period.
I was a 7th grade kid joining a class of matronly women and one very friendly younger one who happened to be the only one to greet me with a smile. “My name’s Pat…I can’t draw a straight line.” I replied, “Me neither!” We both laughed.
Our teacher entered dressed in a long white smock that had every color of the rainbow smeared on it along with some hand prints. (I had imagined he should be wearing a beret.) Both Pat and I exchanged smiles and tried not to laugh out loud. From the moment Pat and I started our first lesson we were bonded forever by the “art spirit” - whose essence she would explain years later to her many students. After 10 weeks of painting items from a glass menagerie we would have a 50-year friendship and still laugh about how we started our lives in the “arts’. Pat that night had a very professional art kit from the local Sherwin Williams, as for me, I had the required minimum, a few tubes of primary colors and a couple of brushes in an old toolbox borrowed from my grandfather – which I still have.
And without further ado, our master began the lesson. We each were given a large sheet of canvas paper. Stretched canvas panels were not used until after we honed our skills and joined the intermediate course. A black glass leopard was on the table and our teacher turned on the desk lamp next to it to cast a dramatic shadow. (I had seen a dozen leopards like this very same objet d’art on the Ocean City boardwalk big wheel prize shelf). After arranging the subject several times we got our first "art concept" – “When light is applied to something it casts a shadow”. We were then directed to start to paint the thing; to not worry if it didn't look like the object; most important to not forget to paint its shadow. Our verbal lesson ended as our master began to feverishly paint an orange leopard (he used the “watch me” method - that was the mode of the great art master's style of teaching) The class of dutiful students began to paint orange stick figure cats (even though the model was black). I just stared at my paint tubes until Pat gave me an art tip, “Cal if you mix yellow and red you get orange.” Pat and I laughed again.
Our “lesson” ended after an hour and for the next 9 weeks we both smeared paint on paper and laughed at private jokes. Finally, we made it through each lesson reproducing an array of lifeless still life setups and we graduated from Beginning to Immediate Art class. I suppose the rest of our class continued on – but Pat and I never returned to that basement. But we did learn several things from the course. First, that our teacher was actually color blind – we got used to his renderings of purple roses and crimson bananas - but did not follow his color choices after the first session. Pat and I painted an oranges orange. We also “learned” to put a black outline on the left side of everything we painted. These outlines were called "drop shadows” on lettering in the sign painting trade.
Pat Witt continued her painting and had a long artist's journey that was guided by her art spirit. She studied with some renowned artists at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and became a nationally known landscape painter herself. Her work - famed for her "Pat Witt Sunsets", would eventually be exhibited in major galleries all over the world. She started the Barn Studio of Art and mentored literally hundreds of very accomplished artists of all ages over the years to come from her basement beginning. And most important - she has always painted subjects their right color.
As for me – My mom had an orange leopard hanging in her living room for many years. I earned a BA in Fine Art Education. Taught using my painting experience in many ways - but I have never required any student to paint black drop shadows – unless they wanted to!
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