Series “You can’t go out to play until you’ve finished your homework!”

Light Impasto added to paint, Rough side of Masonite, Glaze to create deep stadium shadow that creeps across sporting ground in summer: Mix of Raw umber with drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Shadow beneath cricketer; mix of raw umber and pthalo blue drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Paint applied with palette knife. Glaze applied with Cotton wool.

Light Impasto added to paint, Rough side of Masonite, Glaze to create deep shadows and darken room : Mix of Raw umber with drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Golden light glaze across faces of the children; Yellow oxide, drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Paint applied with palette knife. Glazes applied with old sheet. Glaze wiped from light blue and pink on the boy and from the homework book.

Light Impasto added to paint, Smooth side of Masonite, Glaze to create deep shadow on the left: Mix of Raw umber with drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Golden sunbeam glaze across work landing on the players; Yellow oxide, drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Paint applied with palette knife. Glazes applied with large brush.

Light Impasto added to paint, Hessian on Masonite, Glaze to create deep shadows and darken room : Mix of Raw umber with drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Golden light glaze across arms and hair of the boy and in the background form light from a table lamp using tape masking; Yellow oxide, drying retarder and Spreader medium and water. Paint applied with palette knife. Glazes applied with cotton wool ball. Glaze wiped from front shirt of boy and from the homework pages. The glazes deepen the room to indicate its getting later in the day and he has still not finished his homework.

You can't go Play until you finish your Homework

I was playing around with oil pastels to create some studies for a series about the frustration and torment, delay tactics and over the top angst of kids asked to do their homework. We all know they'd rather be allowed to go play!!
Two of the images show the the frustration and annoyance of being asked to do their homework, and the other two show what these two boys would rather be doing; playing soccer, or playing cricket.

playing cricket

playing soccer with my friends

I hate homework, I want to go play soccer with my friends

I hate homework, I want to go play cricket

I really found these oil pastels, well, crappy to use! but I am going to give another brand a try before I give away pastel drawing:)

Teacher! Teacher!

I have been working on a series of 4 for uni, expressing my frustration about the current state of play in education. I am sick of watching politicians press conferences and reading posts and comments about teachers calling them lazy and greedy, incompetent and unprofessional. I'm sick of hearing parents get angry about having to spend a few hours, or one day with their own children while teachers are striking for the betterment of their kids education. Most of the time its not even about making things better, most of the time its about stopping conditions from getting worse.

Teachers strike because its the only option left to try to be heard by governments who won't negotiate, use delay tactics to run down the clock on discussions and work on secret education budget slashing by stealth.
The upcoming battle for teachers is standing up against the replacement of full time teaching positions with casual and contract teachers, larger class sizes, less funding, cuts in programs for special needs and learning support kids. I'm calling on our governments to stop the madness and fund education properly. The kids need it.

For the exercise it was an emphasize on using line and colour and I was trying to represent some of the working life of a teacher. The comments come from comments found on the internet in relation to teachers.

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I'm not quite happy with any of them but it was an interesting exercise to try another way of working.