Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Pushing Through

I have been missing in action for a few weeks.  The class I have been taking, and completed, was all consuming.  This was without doubt the most challenging art experience I have ever had - and the most rewarding in so many ways.  It was a true grit experience.  It was a course that integrated technique, color theory and composition, and required that we trust our intuition.  Each week we learned a new concept and then had to produce six finished pieces, then post and blog about them.  There were times when I thought my brain would explode.  There were times when I felt that I was doing it all wrong and could not grasp what it was I was supposed to be doing differently.  There were times when I just wanted to quit.  But I didn't.  I persevered because my passion for the work superseded my fears and frustrations.  I came away with a clearer sense of myself as an artist and feel so much more inspired to explore my work.  I am exhausted but excited about sitting down again to continue to develop and create.  Pushing through anything in life will always lead you to a more evolved sense of self.  Here is a sample of the monoprint/collage work:






Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Reflections

I have a BIG birthday coming up in July and have been doing a lot of processing about my life so far.   Some decades just arrive, barely noticed because of the busyness of daily life.  Others rear their heads and demand attention.  This is one decade that has been insisting that I stop, look and listen.  It seems to correspond to this weeks art lesson.  I am doing small studies using monoprint and collage.  I've had to pay close attention to white space, values, texture, shapes, composition and elemental relationships.  The assignment moved me into thinking about how I allow for balance in my life, how I give myself breathing room, what is meaningful to me, how I've learned to let go of clutter (thoughts, feelings, people, things), the value of my relationships, and how colorful or stimulating my life is.  All these questions came up for me as I was working.  My internal response is that I am exactly where I want to be at this point in time.  I've always felt that I was ten years behind myself.  It took  a while to figure it all out but now, I believe I've caught up.  How interesting that my art studies challenged me and then encouraged me to evaluate where I am at this point in time.  Rather than dreading this next birthday, I will welcome and honor the energy it took to get here and the wisdom I've achieved that is allowing me to appreciate all the gifts I have been given.  Here are a few of the studies.  Nothing major but certainly got my internal juices flowing!