Weldon Oliver helps a student prepare a canvas in Diane Conlee’s third-grade class.

Artist hopes to teach painting techniques in local schools through new non-profit organization.

Wiggle it.” “Scrub it.” “Swish it.” You would think Weldon Oliver is teaching dance to Diane Conlee’s third graders, but he is holding a paintbrush.

The local artist, who founded the nonprofit organization Helping Hands for the Arts, Inc., earlier this year to bring arts education to places that have no fine arts programs, taught oil classes to students at Siuslaw Elementary last week. Oliver instructed Diane Conlee’s third grade class on Friday, Dec. 7, and Vicki Rankin’s third grade students on Tuesday, Dec. 4.

Oliver starts by showing the children the proper way to hold a paintbrush.

“Put your thumb on the metal,” he says. “Don’t make a fist, make a pinching motion. Why am I making such a big deal out of this? You’re learning a lot of motor control.”

After the students “condition” the brush, they do the same to the board.

“I’m just going to wiggle the brush. Push it and wipe it on the board,” says Oliver.

They start with a blank canvas. It stays blank for a while.

Oliver points to the finished paintings on the wall that students in Vicki Rankin’s class painted earlier this week. The paint is bold and beautiful, showing a forest scene at night with glitter for stars.

There is a collective gasp through the classroom.

“I can do that?” says one child.

Teaching the steps in oil painting sounds a lot like a nature lesson.

“Wiggle the brush across the top of the sky,” says Oliver. “Get the arch in the sky. The world is round. ‘Scumble’ or glaze the paint in the way the wind blows. We have to do what the atmosphere does.”

The painting takes a series of steps to complete, mixing colors and adding them gradually to blend a finished piece. The slow, step-by-step nature of it engages students in the process, says Oliver.

“It helps get past that fear of starting, to have something instantly gratifying when you’re done,” says Oliver.

About an hour into the process, the canvases have blotches of brightly colored paint – but not even a snowflake yet.

The yellow is supposed to be the sky at this stage.

“The yellow becomes very dirty,” says Oliver. “Look at that nice, beautiful, dirty sky.”

“How is this becoming beautiful?” one student asks a classmate.

“It’s not supposed to be beautiful yet,” says the classmate.

Oliver tells the students that paintings are always unique for a lot of reasons that have everything to do with art.

“There’s simply no way two paintings will look alike,” says Oliver. “How long your arms are, what shape the brush is in, how hot it is in the room for how runny the paint was, all these things are just the beginning. Go to the copy shop if you want it exactly so.

“There’s always going to be a little bit of the person who did the painting in the painting.”

Some students have a block of purple on their canvases; others have more orange. Oliver reminds students to control their brushes.

“That’s the trick with art. Know when to stop,” he tells them.

Oliver wants to hold more classes at the elementary school and train staff and parent volunteers next year, though plans for expanding the program are still tentative. He said he must find sponsors and work out scheduling details to hold more elementary classes.

Oliver has lived in Florence since 1998 and has been painting since 1993. Oil is his main medium. He opened Oliver’s Art, a studio in Old Town Florence, in 2002, but he recently closed the business and started Helping Hands for the Arts soon after.

The organization also teaches art classes in Veneta and in California. Oliver is the artist in residence as well as the founder.

Oliver says he also hopes to start teaching local adult classes as well.

“My mission is to pass on these techniques to people where there are no art programs, everywhere from senior centers to schools,” says Oliver. “It’s very good for the self image to be able to express oneself through art. My job is to make art widely available for the public.”

He wants to see more people involved, perhaps a large class of hundreds of people at a local venue, all learning the step-by-step technique on their own easels.

The classes last week were the first time he shared the techniques in Siuslaw schools.

“It’s all I could do to keep up with them,” he says of last week’s classes. “It went very well.”

Back in Diane Conlee’s class, Oliver tells students to think about how colors appear in nature.

“As a painter, I know it’s the gray coloring the sky,” says Oliver. “Add a little blue. See how that’s becoming second nature? Control the brush. Let the red slide over that, big strokes, no fear.”

Two hours in, the students’ paintings are still a lot of colors that do not yet look like much, but they are all focused on their canvasses.

“I’ve never done this before,” says one.

“Oh, it looks so cool,” breathes another third grader, his brush poised over his canvas.

An hour later, the students finish their masterpieces – complete with a bright blue sky filled with winter stars.

For information, go online to www.handsforart.org or call Weldon Oliver at 991-0648.