New Class - New Ideas - Fear and Trepidation

The past 10 days I have been taking a new on-line class through Jeanne Oliver Creative Network.  I am doing this voluntarily.  No one is making me.  But it is really hard and sort of scary.  This class is called Figuratively Speaking and the teacher is Dina Wakely.  Wonderful teacher.

But I do not have experience painting.  Full stop.  How card can it be you wonder?  Just a paintbrush and paint?  Well - that is what I thought.  It looks so easy when you watch someone on the computer - but then it is hard when you try it yourself.  I feel like a Klutz.

But - I did work thru the entire class and did the projects and took photos to share.  Here they are:

This is an exercise called Carrot People.  It is a technique used by watercolor artists to grab shapes of people.  Simple and fun to tilt their little bodies all over the place.

Then we traced the general outline of a person from a fashion magazine just to get their abstract shape.  Simple lines being the goal.  Then painted the tracing paper.  Have you ever painted tracing paper?  It wrinkles like crazy.  Then adding words with tissue paper printed with words and glued down, then gluing the whole person to a background.

Whew.  Again - not in my wheelhouse of skills.  BUT I learned a lot about adding both dark and light to the background to make it interesting.  I am a bit of a monochromatic artist so this was really good to think about and add.

Three more figures done the same way.  Spooky looking guys.

Then it got a little harder.  These are two tags where we painted and lettered randomly in the background and then painted around the figure.  All of the color in the figure is actually the background painting. You just have to imagine where the figure is and then start painting.  This is where I realized my lack of painting skill.  Yikes!  But - They turned out OK eventually.

Two more tags.  One of the new skills which is lots of fun is Asemic Writing, a wordless open semantic form of writing.  It is meant to draw the viewer into the piece to try to figure out the meaning.  It is sort of like organized scribbling with lots of loopy upper and lower parts.  It is against my basic nature to be sloppy in any way and this feels sloppy to me but it is also fun once you get started.

This is a detail of one of the tags.  You can see the weaving that was added after the paint dried.

And here is the final project.  Making a little booklet out of the larger piece of painted watercolor paper by folding and cutting and stitching and adding writing and stenciling.  And there is one of my little tracing paper people on the front.

The purpose of the book is to make a place for all of the little tags to live.  The book is constructed to leave little pockets between each page at the top so that the tags can be inserted.  This give you an idea of how that looks.



So here is my overall feeling about this class:
I am very grateful to have had this experience because it makes me realize once again, as a teacher, what it feels like to feel awkward and unsure and even embarrassed by what I am making as I learn a new skill.  I really think this will make me a better teacher.
And - this is good for my BRAIN.  It definitely feels like my brain s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d.  A good thing.

Some Days Are Like That!

This is a busy time of year and I have been distracted by things other than fabric art projects.  Lots of household tasks and lots of working on paper - painting little pictures and things like that.

Actually I have felt like my "muse" has taken a vacation for a while.  Do you have a Creative Muse?  I feel her presence whenever I am creating happily away in my studio.  Or just sitting somewhere with ideas for projects bombarding my imagination.  She is distinctly THERE or..... sometimes.... not.

So when she is away (presumably on a warm beach relaxing in the sun and drinking an umbrella drink) I miss her.  But I find other things to catch up on.  But ---- then I really want her to return and inspire me.  To do that I try to find a simple project with fabric that will get the creative juices flowing.

The picture above is what I worked on to do that this week.  It will be a lovely banner to hang between two trees in our front yard to welcome folks.  You can see what happens when my muse is away on vacation!

I was actually feeling quite happy with my little self when I finished sewing all the flags to string that would act as a hanger.  Until I held it up and realized...... oops!  I started laughing out loud.  I don't make mistakes like that!  I sent a photo to several friends to give them a laugh as well.

And then of course I fixed it today.  I do believe that Life has a grand way of reminding a person (especially when she is feeling sort of proud of herself) that she too is a bit goofy and silly at times.

Little Owl

The past few weeks I took a break from quilting and just did other things.  It is interesting to observe my creative meanderings - sometimes I just need to change gears and do something completely different. 

And I have really enjoyed the little paintings and the on-line class.

But I was ready to make a small quilt.  And this is the little guy that I made.

He is only 9x13 inches and he lives on the floor.  Yes a quilt on the floor.  Not where they usually live.

We have a wonderful water filter that removes the chlorine and the fluoride from our city water.  It sits on the counter with the spigot hanging over the edge of the counter.  So we need a little something to catch any small drips that may fall on the wood floor.  Voila!!  A little quilt. 

I like this guy.  I wasn't sure what else to add to his space but I like the simple branch shapes.  And I especially like the fabric that I found for his chest because it looks like feathers.  Hoot!

Four Little Paintings Get Together

Remember the painting class I took recently where I learned to use charcoal?  Well the last lesson in the class was mounting the drawings/paintings on wood panels. 

Wow.  I never would have thought of that myself.  But it was easy and it made them look so much more.... important?  Official?  Not sure the perfect word to describe the difference - but they looked surprisingly better. 

So I hung them up in a group.  The photo is slanted because they are in a narrow hallway and I couldn't get far enough from them to take a direct shot.  I would definitely take another class from this teacher because I learned SO much.  Now I just need to actually USE that new knowledge to make more drawings. 

Postcards

 I plan to participate in Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour next Fall.  People have such a good time visiting artists' studios that sometimes they like to buy a "little something" from the artist as a memento of that visit.

I was looking for something that reflected my style but was small enough to fill this purpose for some of my visitors.  An artist on this years tour had small postcard size drawings (I bought TWO!) and I am trying out that idea for myself.  So here are pics of some of them.  They are 4x6 inches and I will be getting some transparent mailer covers for them. 

A worthy (and FUN!) experiment.  I am having great fun making these little guys and isn't that what it is all about?

Another little guy....

Some of my card critters.....

Learning More New Things

So here is my first attempt at Pears.  Hmmmm.
It was hard.  Partly because I did not have the proper supplies.  I have a grand supply of acrylic paint - but not heavy body acrylic paint (which is apparently thicker and covers over other layers more effectively).

The process for this little painting was to start with looking at shapes and shadows and then paint those basic areas with a very dark paint.  Fine so far.  Then you use other colors to use the initial sketch as a base - and color over it.

That is where the problem occurred.  My paints would not cover the dark initial layer.  Hmmmm.  A challenge!!  How to proceed?

So I looked at the supplies that I did have - and added some gesso to the paint - and it worked pretty well.  It eventually covered.  I really did learn a huge amount by trying to add the right colors in the right places and to "see" the shades and shapes.  And I am happy with this for a first effort.  But I have a whole new respect for people who paint pears!!

And here is the last lesson.  A "loose sketch of a hummingbird showing motion".  Again hmmmmm.  I don't do "loose" very well.  It is apparently (for me at least) an acquired skill.  I will definitely try this again.

Overall - a GREAT class.  I learned so much about supplies and tools and about ME.  I can't wait to try some of the new techniques on drawing a face.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Learning New Things

Here is something that you probably don't know about me... I have never learned how to draw realistically.  I have great fun drawing whimsical imaginary critters and I can recreate faces in fabric - but I have never learned how to actually "draw" what I see.

So I am taking an on-line class.  And it is great.  My brain practically hurts from stretching but I am loving it.  I figure that anything new that I learn about art will add to my own fabric creations.  And it will certainly add to my art journals.

The class is called "Draw and See" and this first drawing is leaves (I know - obviously!).  But here is the thing that I learned:  It uses charcoal.  I never did that before and it is a whole different experience.  And it uses a technique of measuring distances and angles with a bamboo skewer.  Really!  Strange but surprisingly effective.

This is the second one.  Flowers (obviously!) but the technique starts with watercolor blobs in the general shape of the flower first - then charcoal.  And I was amazed that they actually do look like flowers.  Some more than others of course - but a good start.

And then a Bird.  Again using the bamboo skewer to be sure the drawing is accurate.  You would be amazed at the Ugly Stage this went through.  I truly did not think it would ever look like anything resembling a real bird.  But I am feeling more confident.


Obviously the teacher is excellent.  To lead someone like me with basically no experience to a point where I feel pleased with what I am learning and also looking forward to not only the rest of the lessons but also to making up my own challenges and seeing what I can draw is a real accomplishment.

This lesson was very strange - but my eyes are learning so much.  This is an eraser drawing.  Yup.  You start with a smeared charcoal background and start erasing to find the shape of the Moths.  Then add charcoal and white pastel and white ink.  Again using that goofy bamboo skewer to make the size and angles accurate.

I am especially amused by how different each of the lessons is - but how they all flow together and build on simple techniques and new combinations of different media. 

The next class is Pears.  Hmmm..... can't wait!