Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Something New . . .

Feel What You Feel

In this week's Gratitude Monday post, I mentioned that I found some inspiring new art blogs.  I was particularly talking about Amy McDonald's blog and free online classes.  Yes, you read that right -- free.  And these classes are pretty amazing.  It's clear that Amy loves art, and loves to teach.

Plus, it's refreshing to find someone who is willing to create community and share information without putting a price tag on those things.  Wow.  I feel inspired for when/if I ever teach my own art classes.  I'll say it again -- wow.

On top of the classes she offers at her Ning site, Flutterbye, Amy also teaches live art classes via an online video chat room.  It looks like these classes are held about once every week or so (check out Amy's blog for future classes).  When I saw that there was a class scheduled yesterday, of course I had to take part in it.

And . . . it was super fun.  Mostly because I felt like I was participating in a live art class.  As I've written about before, I love painting while someone is chatting in the background, and this class offered the bonus of being able to respond via text.  Plus, Amy is really awesome.  She makes me want to dreadlock my hair. 

The goal for the class was to paint something ugly just for the enjoyment of painting, and not to show off.  So I started sliding paint across my paper, not really hoping for much and fully expecting to hate the end result.

But I didn't.  In fact, I actually kind of love the finished product (that's it up there at the top of this post).  It's not profound or deep or ultra-lovely . . . but it's something new, something different from my usual creations, and that's what I like about it.  I like that I was willing to try.  Plus, I discovered a new color combination that makes me really happy -- turquoise + red.  Delicious.

All this to say . . . Amy's art community is worth checking out.  I'll definitely be participating in her upcoming live classes.  And maybe I'll even start painting abstracts on my own more regularly.

Do you create outside of your comfort zone?  If so, how does it make you feel?  And if not, why not?

2 comments:

  1. I like it too. Made me think about this email I received from Catalyst.
    http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_circle_maker/

    Red and torquoise. Yes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a cool sounding book. Thanks, Dea!

    ReplyDelete

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