I managed to line up an online art class exactly with my visit to Seattle.
Experimenting
After many months of enjoying my backlog of Art Juice podcasts, hearing about Louise Fletcher‘s free Find Your Joy class at the wrong times, I stumbled across the perfect alignment: it was starting this week. I highly recommend it, if it fits your schedule and needs like it did mine. There were some good lessons, that I know already, that I needed reminding of, and that I can go back to when I need another push: paint past the edges, try different things, make a mess.
Meetings & Making
The first night of my visit had the comfy familiarity of an Arizona Collage Collective hangout.
I worked through three more spreads of my spelling book collages, liking the contrast I can get with different layer blending, and having fun finding the right scribble collage to add an element that joins the two sides.
As a warmup the next day, I visited my manila sketch scans, and tried to combine them to make a texture. My teal scribbles were a little sparse, and my brown swatches were too dark. But together? Interesting!
Then, I headed to my Seattle art storage space (that thing that used to be a studio!) to dive into the first lesson of the class. I was sure I’d have all the supplies at hand there, and I almost did!
The lesson asked for three colours, so I chose my current faves, though primaries would have been better. Then it asked me to paint a taped-off surface as a whole, but I was VERY aware of the sections, wanting them to be balanced. The idea was to NOT worry about the edges — something to work on. Then, my supposed painter’s tape took a lot of the paper with it, but oooh, irregular edges! I need to tear off MORE tape, good one.
When there’s a Monday studio call with SLMM, I always check the Paris Collage Collective image first: can I play with this week’s photo? This week, definitely!
After class lessons on using hated colours and making ugly art — none of which needs to be shared widely, I relaxed into some soothing botanicals during the Tuesday SLMM call, while we had a good discussion about ugly art and what it means.
I liked these pieces even better when I added a scribble layer. Will these end up anywhere external? I don’t know, but I sure love creating them.
Viewing
On my way to an errand, I stopped into Harris Harvey Gallery for Wendy Orville’s show Seeing Trees. Her monotypes are exquisite! I watched her artist talk, available on the show page, for some insight into how she creates her images.
Then, on the way back from the errand, I checked in on Slip Gallery for a show from Xin Xin & a catchup with Amy Tipton, who’s done so much for the art walks in this neighborhood.
And out in the ether, there was a call for art that was very tempting: minimal art. It’s what I aspire to, but… But I’d already applied to this gallery this year, and I want to move my own art forward first. So it was a delight, since I trust the curator, to view the resulting art, those that did apply and get accepted. Please enjoy art-fluent’s online show, Minimal.
I’m going to work on getting to more minimal work, based on what I’ve already done, using my reading and this class to prod myself more. What kind of structure or prompt helps you move forward?