Charcoal, Contour and Collaboration ~ Week 2

We worked on some contour drawing ideas today as we tried to draw/represent eachother's poses on a mural sized sheet. You all did a great job. Some of you were daunted by the idea of drawing a 'likeness' but keep in mind you have permission to approach our work together in your own way. We were making outlining marks on the page, trying to translate what we were looking at into some kind of record of what we saw. We did not need realism, only personal effort.

I want to re-emphasize that I don't care(in the kindest way) if you're not feeling creative during one of our sessions. If that is the case then you need to be adventurous - we are doing exercises and the most important thing with these is for you to have an experience in doing them. Each thing we do will add to the next.

We talked about 'Happy Accidents' last week. And one idea of the Happy accident is Kelly's share about discovering how accidentally dripping paint made her work more interesting. If you extend the idea of  Happy Accident, it is really just the fun of creativity, or maybe even the sense of humour of it(sometimes the joke is on us!). Just by doing something, seemingly blindly, or in the case of Kelly's spill, by thinking you knew where you were headed in a work(positively or negatively) - you come upon something or notice something that wasn't there before: an unexpected idea. And it takes you somewhere...and you let it! 
So, since we love Happy Accidents, we should make space for them. In our studio, we give ourselves permission to have the kind of space and time to not worry about how something is going to work out but instead to let things happen and become more than what we thought, as our actions start to lead us. Our art sessions are about letting our ideas out, so let's surprise ourselves with the unexpected!

I am bringing all my efforts, and only the most positively critical, and excited view of all of our work. I expect you all to do the same. Respect yourselves enough to remember you are as important to this project as anyone else. Oh, and some of the best creative experiences come from doing something "badly", by the way. Don't get hung up with what you can't do, when there is so much else to do, and so much creativity and learning in just doing, even badly...Please be open to Happy Accidents in skill and wherever you may find meaning.

Next week you are bringing in your personal objects to photograph and we will do a very quick drawing exercise as well.  I did a quick photo scene last night and found some fun compositions to work with. I'll format and add them shortly as an example here: Please see the above post for Tuesday March 5th. thx.

Thank you so much for a fun and messy Tuesday!
Sylvie