Artist Wonderland!

On Tuesday my oil painting class had to opportunity to go to a $750 dollar oil painting workshop for only $25 which we already paid the school in lab fees when we first registered for the class. The workshop was by a short Russian man named Ovanes Berberian who studied under Sergei Bongart (another Russian painter) for about 30 years I think. You would never know his house was even there just driving by because it was surrounded by trees and a tall wooden fence. But once inside this fence a magical land emerged made just for artists! His studio/house looked like a large log cabin castle and he had a huge green yard full of trees and flowers. When first walking up to the yard it looked like there were fancy tables set up all over for people to sit but once I got closer I realized his beautiful green yard was full of still life set ups! There had to been like fifty! It was almost a little eerie walking through all the still lifes...almost like something out of a twilight zone. And of course the inside of his house was huge and beautiful! Well I'm not quite sure if we were in his house or studio,or just the connected part of the studio to his house...either way it was huge and beautiful! He had a nice gallery set up complete with lights to show off his work in the best light and his actual studio room was huge so we could all sit and watch.

I think my favorite thing though was his easel! This man is short, had to be no more than 5 ft. and he paints on huge canvases bigger then him. So, his eisle is huge! He sets on his canvas and can move it around with ease, the canvas on the easel glides whichever way he needs it to go. If he needed to reach the top of his painting he can just pull it down or push it back up to get to the bottom, or to the left or right. It was cool! Now as we are all seated the lights are turned off and there is a spot light right on Ovanas. He paints with HUGE glops of paint on his pallett, I mean these things were literally the size of baseballs! While he was painting I couldn't but help feel like I have seen a cartoon of some kind very similar. Little man, huge canvas, classical music blaring, timid at first-stepping back to examine every brush stroke but once the drawing was down his little arms were speedy and paint was flying onto the canvas. It was almost comical but I don't know if anyone else felt that way because it was dead silent while he was painting, not a peep from anyone! it stayed this way for four hours when he finally turned around and said he was going to take a break. Most of my class, including me, took this opportunity to leave since it was now midnight. It was really fun and cool to be able to experience Ovanes Berberian's artistic world complete with daughters walking around in little toga dresses things, but four hours is also a really long time to sit in silence. At least he had classical music to keep us intertained. I can't wait till I can have my own place to set up my art supplies! =)