Painting anyone?

Yesterday I signed up for Marilyn's 6 week painting course. It starts this coming Wednesday. Somehow I don't feel as confident going into this as I did approaching the Sketching and Drawing class.

In an email she sent me, Marilyn said she thought I would benefit from the painting class, and it got me to thinking. In painting, your image is constructed of color and light - form, structure and texture are rendered in terms of the play of light on the object being rendered. There are no contour lines or cross hatching or erasures for highlights. Interestingly, I think I can see where I should have been taking this approach in my drawing and sketching - painting with pencil - rendering light and dark instead of 'drawing lines'.

I was struck by a thought a minute or two ago. Painting is like the little sketching exercise I have found that I really like a lot. It's drawing a square using diagonal lines. You don't actually draw the square - you don't outline the square with 90 degree angled lines. You draw lines (diagonally in this case) across what would be the surface of the square that end where the sides of the square are, thereby creating the IMPRESSION of the square, not the square itself.

Perhaps I have benefited already.