Are you free or are you tied up?

"Tied Up" mixed media on paper

My dear friend Kerri runs an art group for therapists- it's basically where a couple of us from our grad school cohort meet at her office and take a couple hours to chat about our lives, being a therapist, and whatever else we want while we make art. Kerri always has a prompt of some sort to get us going, and provides the materials for it, too (because, you know, she's awesome). We usually end up doing some sort of art therapy type thing- we try to incorporate what we're thinking and feeling, and what's been occupying our energy at the time, thus helping to release that energy into our art and out of our brains and bodies.

The prompt this time was not a topic, but a method of creating - she has a cup full of strips of paper that say things like "write," "draw," "paint," "3-D," "pattern," "text," "photo," etc., and you have to do something using that method, and once you're done you pick another one at random and add that to your photo. The topic, in this case, was completely open-ended.

I did a piece about what was going on in my life and what had been on my mind. I had also been listening to Miike Snow in anticipation of seeing him live the following day (great show) and the song that was stuck in my head- "Animal," has a line that just happened to fit the theme perfectly. I'm not going to tell you what it's about because really, that's none 'o yo dayyyy-umn business, so let your imagination go wild.

What I really like about this activity and, in this case, the result of it, is that I'm not able to really plan my piece out very accurately, because I might have a great idea using paint and inevitably, I pull "write," out of the cup so then I'm stuck having to write something out or make a pattern or do whatever it says. I actually think it turned out well, but the evolution and end point of the piece was a surprise to me. It's almost like the art itself, paired with my own thoughts and feelings, take me on a journey- like it has something to show me rather than me controlling where it goes.

P.S. If anyone ever tries an art therapy kind of technique I talk about here and feel like sharing it, I'd love to see it and/or post it on the blog. Same goes for any non-prompted piece of art you've done and you're proud of... or not proud of for that matter!!

CoLoR!

 I'm really bad at abstract art. I mean, really bad. I'll show you the horrors that is my abstract are in an upcoming post. One time my mom asked for a piece of abstract art and I warned her that abstract isn't my thing, and she should be specific about what she wants. She refused and, well, she got what was coming to her. Even she couldn't convincingly say she liked it (I'll be sure and find a photo of it for your entertainment). Honesty runs in the family I guess. In college I learned how Piet Mondrian came up his with abstract art- he started with a tree or a beach scene and then progressed into increasingly abstract art until it became nothing but squares of color. The step where it is still almost recognizable but starts to become more a study on color, composition, and shape, as in Mondrian's Grey Tree, is my favorite. That's usually what I try to create when I try to do abstract art and fail. I'm not a huge fan of abstract art in general, although once I sat in front of what I'm pretty sure was about a 6'x6' Rothko (or something similar) of a gigantic indigo blue square and it was incredible. I can't explain why exactly, just the purity of such a beautiful color evoked emotion in me. Speaking of which, this post was supposed to be about color, not abstract art! Below is a little painting I did in about 10 minutes while chatting with friends.

Untitled. 4"x12", acrylics on canvas.

 Although I suppose this could be classified as abstract art I'm not counting this as abstract art because its doesn't fit the purist textbook definition of something that was abstracted from actual imagery. Maybe it doesn't have to be. I'm really not sure.

Detail of above.

But when I just paint color and lines it turns out a lot better than when I try for true abstraction.

Detail of above.

I find the color and shape of pieces like this to be really interesting to look at and very relaxing to paint.

Rainbow. 5"x7". Acrylics on Canvas Board.

This is another mini one I did on the same day in just a few minutes. I think I'm going to try to do a big one soon. Stay tuned, viewers!

Pet Shop

Where to begin? I'll keep you in the past for now... 

"Pet Shop". Watercolors on paper, circa 2000?

This was painted in my high school art class during my Freshman year*. This is probably my favorite thing I produced from that class because it most exemplifies my style, and I enjoyed making it the most. Sort of illustration-y, bright colors, precise and detailed. It looks as though there's a story behind it and it (hopefully) makes you wonder what that story is. This is the direction I'm going (or should be) and this was the first time I took a step in that direction. When I painted this I felt excited. I knew there was more to this, and that this is where I belonged. When you see my current "big" project, you'll see the ties in the style.

*Excuse the blurriness and shine- my mom had it framed and it was sealed in or something, so I took a picture of it through the glass:)