Donna , I laughed about you wanting to talk colours and shapes. You are my kind of person. Yes you definitely belong here!
next time things get dry or heated at a family gathering. I’m pulling out this line! Lol
Definitely we are just visual, artistic, creative people. I’m sure people who are not like cannot understand what makes us so excited about all this visual stuff.
Jennie, well, I love seeing all the experimenting and just trying things you know? You never know where it leads. And even if you decide you don’t like where something has gone, you’re still learning. Very cool effects. For me the second piece is a chef’s kiss. And the colour is gorgeous! Thank you for showing us these pieces.
(Long)
Well, you know this is what this challenge was for. To encourage everyone and to get everyone started and unafraid to make a move, and especially to try something beyond what you usually do. And perhaps if you’re not really into this kind of work it is maybe eye-opening how wonderful it can be. I hope lurkers are watching this and getting inspired, excited just to try.
And I’m enjoying our tribe. No matter our style, we just have this understanding and love and appreciation for the visual. For creating. For creating something out of nothing. How it can delight the senses and convey all kinds of emotions and experiences. I’m very pleased you are all willing to try and willing to share. I’m just the hostess of this challenge, but I feel like a proud mama. Can’t help it!
Because this is an open thread I want to remind everyone again that you can add work to this thread anytime in the future. Look how delighted people are when they see new work coming in! And it’s really nice seeing abstract and contemporary getting a little bit more love, a little more attention on the forum. I love the representational stuff too. It’s always very popular. And I still do it. I like both, but it’s hopefully a little bit eye-opening to maybe people checking in who don’t think they like or understand abstract or contemporary work. It is a completely different way of working and thinking about things, but it requires thought and effort and skill by the artist, just like representational does. Moreso in some ways.
Years ago when I was in art school, I had a favourite cousin who is very bright in math and science and computers. However, he was open to try new things. Now he said he liked final exams because it was very straightforward. You knew the answer or you didn’t. You knew how to get to the answer. And I can understand that. But he was making fun of art. Questioning the value of it compared to what people like him can add to the world. That’s a whole other discussion. But I said oh so art isn’t hard like your courses? He said no. And I admit I’d have to study really hard. Math is not my easiest subject and a lot of those subjects are very difficult at a high-level. And I know that it’s not my strength and I reminded him of this and said art or anything creative is probably not his strength. And although he was very articulate, he did not like essay writing or anything like that. I would thrive at it even though I’m breaking rules right now. Like my grammar in this post ha ha ha starting sentences with the word “and” or “because” – for shame! But I digress. So I said to him OK can you go and draw this stuff even if you have eight hours or a week to do it? And he didn’t think he could although he said he could take a stab at it, but he wouldn’t be very good at it yet he would need a lot of practice. I said OK would you like to know what my final exam was in my drawing class? And I told him some of my art professors are very talented but are very eccentric. Volatile even. If only we had questions like in math where there was one answer. And he wasn’t sure what I meant so I told him what my final exam was. My professor came in, through a bucket of water on the floor and he said draw that, and it better not look like a bucket of water thrown on the floor! And then he left! I think we had six hours to complete that and we had to pass this to continue on in our program. So artists create something out of nothing or with very little or much direction- we have to think out of the box and pull it together. And we need people like this around just as we need the very logical concrete thinkers. I also had to remind him that we may not be curing cancer, but what would you do without all the artistic, creative, cultural achievements over the centuries? And this includes architecture. You would have a very boring, dry, joyless sterile society. I mean, this is what makes people human. We can express ourselves so beautifully and creatively whether it be art or music, etc.
Oh, and what did my cousin think of my final exam? His eyes got big and his mouth dropped and he was stunned. It just did not compute! Yes, that’s what creative people can do. They can walk in that part of the world that is not black and white and make connections and reflect that back to society.
