Artists use painting class as therapy

LAKEPORT — Every Wednesday at the Main Street Gallery, Diana Liebe, a local, award-winning artist, holds a watercolor class for people who have never painted anything to those who have been painting for a long time.

Liebe herself has been painting since childhood. She always knew that art was what she wanted to do, so she went to college and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts and a teachers’ credential. She’s taught elementary, high school and college students. An engaging woman who looks at life as being full of possibilities, Liebe says, “Now I teach adults, and I teach kids in the summer through the Summer Youth Camp. Both are held at the Main Street Gallery in Lakeport.”

Last Wednesday’s class was a “freebie” to say thank you to her students, past and present, “I want to thank my followers this year, so I’m putting on this free class,” she said. “We’re painting Christmas cards. I’ve done this class every year for six years. If the students want to, they can take their Christmas card to a printer and have copies made.”

When the budding artists arrive at the class, Liebe has provided a drawing for them to trace, “That’s so the students don’t need to learn how to draw. The students then trace the drawing and I show them step-by-step how to paint it in.” For first-timers, supplies are provided by Liebe; board to paint on, paper, tracing pencil, watercolors and most of all, encouragement. This week’s drawing was a bunch of grapes and grape leaves.

One would think the class would be silent as people concentrated on their painting, but that wasn’t the case. Lots of chatter, teasing and bits of peoples’ life stories traveled around the tables. One woman was there for the first time and was insecure about her talent, however her painting was deemed by the others in the class as seriously beautiful. One person was in the beginning throws of Alzheimer’s, another’s house had burned to the ground in one of the recent fires. However, those bits of information came out as people were saying how much the painting took their minds off their troubles. How therapeutic painting was.

There was a lot of laughter during the 3 hour class. Much of the friendly teasing was directed toward Richard Schmidt, the current Poet Laureate of Lake County. Big as he is [5-foot, 5-inches], he can not only take teasing, he can give it right back. The same joke was told by Liebe and Schmidt [partners in real life] with two different points of view. Both versions made the class laugh and paint-out-of-the-lines, which, for teacher Liebe, was not a problem. She repeatedly said, “If you don’t like something, once the paint is dry, you can paint over it, or leave it as a creative choice.”

When asked what he felt about the class, Wally Cox, with a year of painting under his belt, said, “It’s a wonderful way to spend 3 hours of my life.” His sister, Gloria Broshat piped up quickly and said, “It’s awesome. I’m having a great time. The group is a friendly group and it isn’t as scary as I thought.” Each artist joined in on their assessment of the class. Whitney Braito, 35, who has been taking lessons for one year said, “To me it’s like being back in high school when I did art class. I haven’t sat down and done this kind of thing in forever. It’s a blast.” Her mother, Kathy Graydon, who has also been taking the class for a year, said, “This is wonderfully distracting and I always end up proud of my work. Plus it takes my head off of every other thing, I only worry about this,” she said pointing to her painting.

Liebe showed one student how to apply a small amount of water to the grapes, then color it lightly with pink so when developing a light spot on the grape that area wouldn’t be stark white. Once dry, she said to color it with purple. Liebe then showed how to dab a small dot of blue onto the grape, letting it mix with the purple, thus making it a multi-colored area. She was full of methods that she shared with the students, along with her philosophy on art. “The class is therapy,” she said. “You don’t worry about the fight you had with somebody, or the bills you have to pay, because you’re zoned in on what you’re painting. You totally forget about the negative of life and then when you’re done you’re all happy because usually we tell a joke!” Everyone laughed along with Liebe remembering a joke about a chicken.

“We walked down the street to our car last week,” interrupted Graydon, “holding our paintings out so everyone could see them, hoping to draw attention. In fact, we got waylaid in front of Angelina’s [Bakery and Espresso] and drew a crowd that said, ‘Oh, what did you guys do?’ Graydon put on a sassy air and said, “We, of course, showed off our paintings and told them how great your classes are.”

“Since I’ve been painting,” continued Graydon, “I’ve begun to notice colors. For example, when the leaves began changing, I noticed the different yellows and greens and browns, and how the sunlight backlights, shadows…colors…trees…” she said as her voice trailed off, once again concentrating on the colors of her grape leaves.

Liebe’s class runs every Wednesday from 1 to 4 p.m. and costs $20. In 2019, the classes will run Wednesdays from 1 to 3 p.m., $10 per session. Located at Main Street Gallery, 325 North Main, Lakeport. Contact her at: http://www.dianaliebe.com