Creative Inspirations, Creative Projects

The Artist’s Challenge; January

I just couldn’t get there.  I walked around, clicked the music on and off, sipped more coffee, stared into the woods, ate a cookie and still I could not get into the zone to start my art.  It is a challenge for an artist to remain creative and inspired despite the circumstances, so sometimes we need a jump-start.

As a remedy to the creative blocks that can come with these stressful times we are living in, a group of artist friends and myself are challenging each other monthly.  These out-of-the-hat challenges have been fun for all of us and, because we each work in different mediums, has given us all a stretch to try something new.

Here’s the idea: we each have taken responsibility for a particular part to the challenge—color, shape, material, emotion, finish—and have made a “hatful” of answers for 12 months.  We Zoom each month to share our finished pieces, then randomly draw the slips from the hats for the next month.

When we met in December we chose the following: 

  • Sherwin Williams color of the year 2021 Urbane Bronze
  • Guitar shaped
  • Tyvek material
  • Joyful emotion
  • Smooth finish

Here is what I came up with:

I decided to not be literal but use the guitar shape for a petal on a flower; I lifted am image off the internet and sized it in word processing, printed and cut it out as a template. I color matched Urbane Bronze with my artist acrylic paint and scavenged the Tyvek material from a USPS mailing envelope.
I used the same technique as I use for my canvas Botanica Sculpture (click here to see the process) to make the petals.
I painted and cut out the smooth Tyvek for inner petals and also cut and pleated some for the outer petals.
A pin wheel!! Each petal is grommeted and they all affix around a center bolt. The face of the flower is joyful plus I thought it was whimsical to use the printed USPS material.

Thanks for reading. Stop by next month for the February challenge!

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