Two art-thinking experiences this past week have stirred up my creativity.
First, I rediscovered a book on my shelf I had forgotten I had. A delightful serendipity. I went to the bookshelf for the dictionary, looked down, saw the watercolor book and pulled it out. What wonderful hours this provided! I spent hours on the porch, feet up in my favorite reading place, remembering how much I love watercolor and how much it has to teach every other medium.
Powerful watercolors rely on freshness and contrast. The artists in this book share a lot of their specific how-to methods of achieving this.
I am still working through how these lessons can inform my own work in textiles.
Takeaway: It is always time well spent to look at and be inspired by great art, whatever the medium.
The second art-thinking experience was presenting a talk to a local art group, primarily painters.
Takeaway: It helps to talk about your work.
Just as people who teach will describe learning a subject best by having to teach it, I realize that I understand my own work best when I take time to condense my thoughts and describe them to somebody else.
(So… THANK YOU those who read my blog. You give me this chance every week!)
To introduce my work, I prepared this PowerPoint slide:
We spent some time on this idea—which should be obvious. But it was not obvious to me when I began artmaking. I recalled (and shared) my early attempts as a student watercolor artist when I thought my task was just to depict what I saw. I hadn’t given any thought to the “about” part: what interested me in a certain subject matter? What emotions did I hope to evoke? What memories might be stirred?
I like this image from Becoming One With the Night because I thought I did some things right. I did have a model sitting on my porch to use as a starting place and this is a representational work. But I did not just depict what I saw. I used it as a starting place to create an emotional experience.
The works from the watercolor book that blew me away this week – even those that address very traditional subject matter:landscapes, lighthouses, still life – all clearly also communicated an “about.”
I developed the presentation more with this:
This is a detail from Seeing Through to the Light. It is a work that combines a detailed photo with abstract color blocks. I definitely intended it to communicate an idea.
But, the technical “how-to” is a strong part of the work too. The creation of my own surface design. A controlled palette. The creation of layers.
Recalling the images in my watercolor book, I am amazed at how many are nearly monochromatic in their palette choices. And many of the artists had mastered using the transparent paints to create depth and layers.
I’m inspired by my art thinking this week. The idea wheels are turning towards how I might use these thoughts in my work next.
If you’d like to read more about the two quilts I’ve referenced in this post, you can find them on my website Here:
For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating
Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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