We continue to challenge ourselves, this Pandemic-driven virtual artist’s group and myself. While much of our country seems to be headed towards opening up, we still have been meeting on-line inspiring each other to make art.
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 meet in March we chose the following:
- Benjamin Moore’s color of the year 2021 “Aegean Teal”
- Sand paper for our material
- Amoebic for the shape
- Fuzzy for the texture
- Cheeky emotion
Here’s how I thought through my process: the amoebic shape challenge really got me to thinking in the abstract. I have always loved how printing off a gel plate naturally produces other-worldly shapes so I decided to use that for mono-printing fabric which led me to the decision that my piece would be a framed collage.
I first created a back ground on the fabric with two layers of alcohol-spritzed paint that were spread thin on my paint board then printed on to the fabric (sorry, forgot to take photos). Then when that fabric had dried, I painted my amoebas onto the gel plate and printed them into the fabric over the first prints.
I played around with the idea of sand paper painted teal as an accent in the collage. But when I glued sand paper to my recycled frame and painted it white, I decided that a white piece of sand paper in the collage would tie the whole thing together.
To add the fuzz element to the collage I decided to use some wool roving stitched through a piece of fabric that I painted the teal color. Once stitched I trimmed it to make it closer into the piece. I think it added the “cheeky” element as well.
And here it is!
Here is what some of my group came up with:
The world of fairs and exhibits are opening up this summer so our artist’s group is on full speed getting ready for these. So it was decided that we will postpone our next challenge until September when we are through this busy season. Check back then. But in the meantime look to see what each of us are up to.
- Adele Sanborn; https://cornerstonedesignnh.com
- Steve Hayden; https://www.haydenarts.com
- Lori Rollason; https://www.lorirollason.com
- Cheryl Miller; https://www.cherylzmillerart.com
Thank you for taking the time to read this and please leave a comment! Check this page to see my answers. Happy Spring!
I cannot think of a better way to keep brain waves healthy and productive for gifted folks with the added benefit of friendship and connection. “Stimulus” comes in many forms.
Agreed!
Fun!!!
Beautiful blog for April!