More Practice

You’ll think I don’t have much left to show you from Sketchbook Practice when I say all only lessons 5 and 6 work remains. Ha!

In lesson 5 we returned to work we began earlier, starting with small pieces of paper we crisscrossed with lines in black and a black wash. Our assignment was to add one thing to each to connect the black and wash lines.

Here are my original black lines and washes.

All mine include a collaged bit, but on some I got busy with paint and markers. Definitely more than one thing.

P elected to add just one color, which was the assignment.

Then, we were to return to one of the line and shape thumbnail drawings we made earlier and make a collage/drawing based on it.

P made some circular shapes and added collage.

I also added collage, then threw in gouache paint, markers, and printing. I also changed the orientation of the thumbnail.

In lesson 6 we got to go technicolor and work with grids. First, we made open and closed grids from collage/paint/etc. Then, we were to make scribble paintings with paint and cut those paintings into pieces and make open (spaces between elements) and closed (all elements touch each other) grids from them.

My scribble paintings.

My closed grid

My open grid with painted lines added.

P’s closed grid with bits glued on top.

P’s open grid with paint and collage between pieces.

As a grand finale we were to make drawings or paintings with an underlying grid structure, but made up of elements other than squares and rectangles. We could use canvas or good paper rather than the cheap drawing paper we used for our practice. P went on to do so. Since so much of quilting involves grids I decided to pass on this assignment.

P used stencils and collage paper as well as paint.

By now I’m sure you can see how differently two people approach the same activity. My work is denser, uses a more saturated palette, and heavier lines than P’s. P’s work uses a brighter, lighter palette; is airier; and often uses broken lines.

I think both of us found the class worthwhile, even though there was no instructor feedback (we knew that going in.) If you’re willing to use a lot of paper you can’t help but learn something by doing the lessons. I’ve shown only a small sample of the work we created. For me, the class brought home that you really need to explore possibilities with an open mind and set aside concern about finished compositions.

This is less than half the work I did for the class. I figure it will be useful for collage.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.