Inspired by Goals

One of my goals for this year was to do one thing that pushes me outside my comfort zone. There are a lot of things that push me outside of my comfort zone so there are no lack of choices. Last week I blogged about one of those things and that is the after school club that I am teaching.  Another, "out of my comfort zone" thing I had planned to do was apply for the artist in residence at Algonquin Provincial Park. That didn't materialize this year because I went abroad during the time of the residency. So I'm making it next year's goal.

In order to apply, I have to have a body of art work I can present with the application. I plan to present some of my art quilts, many which have been inspired by Algonquin as well as other parks in Northern Ontario. I would like to produce a few more so I have to get started early since the art quilts take a long time to complete. I've been revisiting my canoe trip photos to get inspiration and have begun designing a new art quilt for this project.

This is my preliminary watercolour painting of my subject. I placed a canoe in the foreground (there were three canoes in the photo) but didn't like the composition so I edited the canoe out to focus just on the scenery.

Where the canoe was, I'll add some large rocks for interest.

Here is the original photo along with the painting. There is a sheet of tracing paper over the painting on which I am tracing out the landscape but also the variations in colour and value. I will enlarge the tracing to the size I want the final product to be and use it to plot out my pattern.

Zines Class - Lesson 5

This week was "Start on your Zines" week. The students all decided on a concertina format for their zine. This is a booklet folded into an accordion and can be used on both sides. Some of the students chose a large booklet and others chose a booklet with only a few pages. They spent the whole time working to fill their zines with either drawings or using paint and markers. We have one lesson left so I'm hoping they will be able to get their zines completed.

Zines and Sketching Class - Lessons 3 & 4

Since I was away last week, another teacher covered my class for me. The lesson last week was on Watercolour Painting. I wanted the students to try watercolour to see what they could do with it. The teacher had them go outside and gather leaves which they brought indoors and used by tracing to make leaf shapes on their paper. They outlined some and painted others.

This week's lesson was to introduce the students to collage and yes, it was messy. I think the students really got into it though and enjoyed the process. They had to do a little thinking and they had to make choices. We used paint, magazine photos, scrap art, found items, markers.

The plan for next week is to begin working on our zines using some of the techniques we've tried. Their homework was to come to class next week with their title page done.

Mexican Inspiration

I have been travelling again. This time to Mexico for a much-needed time away with my husband. I love to see the art of other cultures and our resort has a distinctly Mayan flavour.