08 May 2010

Complex Collage class progress

I enrolled in my first ever online class last month--Complex Collage, taught by Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen. Did great keeping up with things until life intervened, as it does. Had to make arrangements to go out of town for two days for a funeral (with two kids, that takes a lot of arranging!), then out of town again for a school event, then allergies descended . . . but the great thing about the class is that there are no time constraints on the lessons or access to the videos. What a wonderful thing, to have something in my life that is fun and also is no added stress!

Right now I'm working on the middle stages of completing my first collage for the class. I am gaining some confidence. I know how to do some things now that I didn't before. That's good. Now I have more information to analyze placement of items with, and to at least recognize when something isn't quite there. With reading all the comments and responses to other students in the class, that gives me a great deal to pull on when trying to turn that objective eye on my own stuff.

On the one hand, I feel like a child trying to learn cursive, but on the other I feel brave and am proud of myself for attempting something hard.

07 May 2010

Evening with Friends

Tonight I spent a few hours in the company of two women who also share an interest in creating things and discussing this process and the results of making art, and while not quite as fulfilling as some of our other evenings have been, I did leave with an image in my mind. This is unusual for me, since I don't consider myself to be a visually oriented person, but this one I have. It's more impressionistic, almost but not quite abstract, in style, and it would be three friends sitting at a table with light coming from an overhead, old chandelier, not something shiny but old, and maybe in a square with a light at each corner, and shadows everywhere especially in all the corners. Colors would include deep, dark reds, the light from the chandelier a rich buttery yellow.