I've not drawn since middle school, not really. I wanted to see if I had any talent in that particular visual art genre. One of the classes this summer at my work was "Painting For Adults", taught by a wonderful teaching artist. I figured that since I had the free time and was a fan of the teacher already, this would be a fun opportunity. I am SO glad that I signed up. M is a fabulous artist and a wonderful mentor. She always helped me to see more potential in me than I was aware of. I learned so much from her and also learned quickly if that I hesitated and was scared to try her it, it was the right thing to do. Because once I tried her suggestion, I loved the result and would not have gotten there without her nudge.
All in all, I completed 4 full pieces (over 9 two-hour classes) and at least two others in my own free time.
Her first assignment for us was to go through an old Christie's catalog of modern art and pick a piece and sketch it.
Then we had to sketch it in larger size, and then, rework it. She's a mixed media artist herself and brought us all sorts of fun materials to work with such as decorative papers and rice paper, and encouraged us to work with acrylics.
So this is officially piece no.1:
Then, I was inspired by this piece, but I didn't want to just do an almost direct reinterp. I knew from the get go that it was going to get cut apart and wacked out a little. I'm pleased with how it turned out:
Next up was this piece, which was a reinterpretation of a photograph of my own. This is not how I expected this piece to be. I knew I wanted to do it in layers of decorative papers but this is like a 180 from what was pictured in my head and I still love it:
And lastly, was this piece, which was actually the 2nd started. This was a sketch of some gold sculpture which turned out far better than I had imagined. Again, I had no idea what to do, but just let the muse inspire me:
You can see the reference photos for the pieces done in class, plus the two I did on my own at home, inspired by the class here.
I was the least experienced person in the class, but I was surprisingly unintimidated by my fellow artisans. They inspired me greatly - we were from all walks of life and background. One of them really continuously blew my mind with her work. Such an inspiration.
I plan on continuing on working on some other pieces in the future - mostly interpretations and reinterpretations on my own photographs - using them as a jumping off point for who knows what. I'm so very grateful for getting up the courage to take the class and learning so much from my teacher and my fellow students.
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