In January/February 2021 I took an online painting class at Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia, PA. The class was called BLENDING ABSTRACTION AND REPRESENTATION, and over six sessions our class explored the continuum between these two endpoints of a line.
The class was structured so that we worked on our individual artworks in our home studios while participating in discussions and viewing demonstrations by the teacher. I did quite a bit of work and I’ll be showing them to you over a few posts.
Thanks to my instructor, Lesa Chittenden Lim, and my classmates, for a good experience.
Here’s a painting I did. It’s called “Bedtime Story”, and it is 20″ x 16″, done in acrylics on canvas.
This painting reflects memories of spending the night at my grandparents’ house. My grandmother would read me a story before bedtime, usually a fairy tale. I still have the book she read from.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
Love this! The way you have that rich, velvety blue suggesting the dark of night and contrast that with all those splashes of orange that suggest the warm glow of lamps on for the evening and of the relationship between the two figures. I also really like the composition with the figures nestled together in one quadrant. That adds to the cozy, snug feel.
Thank you. This painting expresses how I felt in this situation. Safe and protected. I like the way this one turned out a lot.
What Laura said and to add you’ve achieved the illusion of the 3rd dimension brilliantly!
Thank you. I am really happy with this painting. For the look of it and I feel satisfied with how I expressed the emotional aspects. In these paintings, when I finish them, I feel a nice sense of completion and resolution by having settled the memories firmly in my mind.
Please don’t underestimate the artistic integrity of your work. Paintings tend to reach beyond the maker.
Thank you. I hope very much that my work, in general (since of course every piece is not this way) can do this – it means a lot to me to know that someone has heard what I was saying, if you know what I mean.
Yes, of course I do.
That is a masterpiece – both in composition and the wonderful feeling it evokes. Perhaps you should do an entire series on these wonderful memories!
Thank you. The class instructor said the same thing. But for me it doesn’t work that way, I have to let the memories/ideas/inspirations come to me. I do feel sure over time there will be more of these paintings.
I look forward to seeing them 🙂
I absolutely love this painting. About a year ago, I made something with the same title!!
Thanks. You know how much my grandparents meant to me.
This image radiates feelings of warmth, security and love.
Thank you. Many parts of my childhood were difficult but I had wonderful grandparents on both sides of my family. And this painting is about the set of grandparents who lived near us. I like to remember those feelings these days.
love the way the stairs tumble to the magical looking foreground, and the protective arm around the little child.
Thank you. I have such good memories of my grandparents and this painting expresses them, I think. And, I have a love for staircases or steps in paintings – don’t know why, but I like to make pictures that include them.