Friday, April 6, 2012

ArtFest 2012, Day Three


By the third day of ArtFest, some of us were beginning to lose steam.  Personally, I don't think I have ever created so much art in such a short space of time.  I loved every minute of it, and it's a bit bittersweet that this year was ArtFest's last.

So, by the time I attended Mary Beth Shaw's class "Extra-terrestrial Texture" I was running on autopilot a bit.  I love her work, and am continually impressed with her sense of composition and use of color.  I don't generally do abstracts, but have been playing around with composition and with texture for a few years.  I was really looking forward to this class.  I went into to it with the idea to pick up as much information on creating texture as possible.

Ultimately, I felt like I came away with some useful techniques.  I was completely blown away with the creativity and stamina of my classmates.  My focus was on trying out as many techniques as possible, and, as a result, I feel like my three collages are a bit busy and unfocused.  I think the lack of sleep and the creative energy drain didn't help either.  I almost didn't post these because I feel like they are not my best work.  After reflection, though, I came to the decision that the process and the mistakes themselves are informative.  The realization that not everything we make will turn out perfect is a hard lesson to learn.  I want my work to be amazing the first time, but art is like anything else.  You need practice and, no matter how talented/skilled you may be, you will have off days.

The ArtFest experience was amazing and the sense of community was one that I hope to find outside of ArtFest.  Thank you to the new friends and to the instructors who helped make such wonderful memories.

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8 comments:

  1. Love them! Very alien looking!

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  2. Love seeing what you did in this class, and your reflections on the art process. We learn from ALL of it, even the happy accidents!

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  3. Loved reading all of your artfest recap posts and seeing the awesome work that you did!

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  4. these are completely awesome! very organic and interesting. especially love the bottom two.

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  5. Thank you for all the supportive comments!

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  6. Sometimes a new technique needs time to seep in and incorporate with the rest of our know-how. Maybe next week or next year, all of a sudden, what you learned in this class is exactly what will make a new piece stand out. Of course, I already like them, just as they are ;-)

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