Learning to paint and draw:
Jeanette Winterson says ,when we make art , “our everyday life is enriched.
How it is enriched? To make something is to be both conscious and concentrated – it is a fully alert state, but not one of anxious hyper-arousal. We all know the flow we feel when we are absorbed in what we do. When you paint you notice more. The world stops moving past in a blur”
We don’t need to be concerned about making masterpieces, if we did then we would never start.
And we needn’t concern ourselves with comparing one kind of art to another, or one process as being more pure than another. It’s not about that.
It is about something very fundamental in all human beings, the deep seated need to express oneself. To make some marks, play with some paint and to learn to give form to an otherwise inexpressible feeling…something that words can’t reach.
In these small classes, which run from my studio in Grey Lynn, we learn many things.
To see in the special way it takes, in order to be able to draw.
To make beautiful expressive marks whether in a charcoal line of or in a complex passage of paint.
We learn what makes a composition strong.
We learn that drawing and painting are all about relationship.
We learn how to mix colours and make them work tonally.
Learning all these things helps us to give form to our art.
“To make is to do. It is an active verb. Creativity is present in every child ever born. Kids love making things. There are different doses and dilutions of creativity, and the force is much stronger in some than in others – but it is there for all of us, and should never have been separated off from life into art.
I would like to live in a creative continuum that runs from the child’s drawing on the fridge to Lucien Freud, from the coffee cups made by a young ceramicist to Grayson Perry’s pots.
We don’t need to agonise over the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, any more than we should be separating art and life. The boundary is between the creative exuberance of being human, and the monotony of an existence dependent on mass production – objects, food, values, aspirations.
Making is personal. Making is shared. Making is a celebration of who we are.” J.W
Some recent student work below
Jo Turner 
Annette Pearton
Amanda Deane
Wendy Selkirk
Maggie Lindner 
Bev Holdsworth
Cynthia Mitchell
Venue my Grey Lynn studio
Time: 9.30-2.30pm with a Tuesday or a Wednesday option
8 week term and 4 terms a year
If you miss out on your class you can always make up the time on the other day within the same term.
We work from the life model, still life, portrait, landscape on location and abstraction.
Working in acrylic and experimenting with the many mediums available.
I teach quite formal lessons.i think it is important to learn how to make strong foundations on which to build . that’s not to say we don’t throw some paint around and have fun, because we do.
I also have a number of weekend workshops in my studio over the weekend.
These are small serious classes in a fun and supportive atelier style atmosphere.
Contact Belinda for more information +64921731007 or 09 360 7075
[email protected]