To overhear Mary Hildesheim of Bothell give instructions to Tessa Gallagher-Wilson of Everett you would think that Tessa, 12, was taking dance lessons.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
“You wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.” Hildesheim said. “Then when you get here, you turn and slide.”
The truth is that Tessa, her mother Marilyn Gallagher and grandmother Lynn Gallagher are learning to paint flowers and leaves during a One Stroke art class.
Hildesheim is one of about a dozen instructors in the Snohomish County area who instruct people in the growing trend of One Stroke painting.
The system is the brainchild of artist and designer Donna Dewberry, whose shows can be seen on PBS. The theory is that would-be artists learn to blend, highlight and shade using only one brush stroke at a time.
Students come to a class knowing little about painting and leave with a completed project such as a tray decorated with roses or pansies, or a wildflower birdhouse.
The classes are popular with individual students, and people also take the class as a group for birthday parties or give them as gifts for Mother’s Day, a change from the usual chocolates and flowers.
Lynn Gallagher, 53, and Marilyn Gallagher, 33, believe that taking the class is a good way for the three generations in their family to connect in a relaxing atmosphere. They mix paints, dip brushes while they listen to soft music.
They wanted to do something as a family, Marilyn Gallagher said. She met Hildesheim at a bazaar last year and got the idea to take a One Stroke class.
Hildesheim shows her students how to put parchment paper on top of a leaf drawing to practice painting the strokes. Then they can paint the vibrant leaf on their project using the One Stroke method.
“Push, turn and lift,” Hildesheim said.
She reminds the three women how much paint to have on the brush and that they need to apply good pressure to their project.
They dip their brushes gently into the paint, each woman lost in her own pansy-filled world.
“How are you doing?” Hildesheim asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Tessa a seventh-grader at Explorer Middle School in Everett.
Tessa decided to use a vibrant blue color for her pansies.
“Do you want to tone it down?” Hildesheim said. “It’s a little wild there.”
Hildesheim said she learns a lot about colors from the kids who take One Stroke classes. She’s contemplating holding a session for 5-year-olds but will have to think of something simple, she said.
Finished projects can be kept or given as gifts. One couple came to Hildesheim’s class before their son got married. Each parent painted a tray. The father gave his to his son. The mother gave hers to her new daughter-in-law.
Those taking Hildesheim’s three-hour One Stroke class, pay one fee and get the brushes, paint and other materials when they arrive. They go home with a finished project.
“Boy, it’s got its rewards,” Hildesheim said. “I’ll tell you, it really does.”
Reporter Christina Harper: 425-339-3491 or harper@heraldnet.com.
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