Mather Senior Art Classes

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October/November: Catch Up Mather Senior Art Classes

Here's my catch-up on my classes with Mather Creative Mindfulness Classes. I haven't been able to participate with them all. But here is a smattering of some of the fun and relaxing work.

Mather Senior Art Classes which are FREE

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My Creative Mindfulness Classes are really fun...each month a theme is announced and we get tips/art history, examples of some type of art/themses/techniques that can be quickly done in about 35 min.

Each month there is a theme, November is Portraits.

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Here is the Mather handout with examples. We were encouraged to select a face portrait from a magazine, artwork or personal photos. Cut it out and paste on a sheet

 of Sketchbook paper.

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I chose to work with one of my iconic Barbie photos. BMR, as I call her is a no.3 doll from 1959-60. She has the softer face. I actually followed the lines of the curvatures in her face/features to draw my first extension lines, like here.

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This is a similar photo. The free line extensions actually originate somewhere from her face. IE: the hairline, the line in the mouth, chin, eyelids, etc. I think the secret to this is don't think too much and just extend the lines in a sweeping quick motion.

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Once the lines are established, you do them in dark marker. 

The Zentangle fill ins.

• Definition

  Zentangle is a relaxing art technique that uses repetitive patterns to create structured images. The word "Zentangle" comes from the words "zen" and "tangle".  

Once your shapes are established and the original lines are dark, you see the spaces, which you fill with repetitive designs. The fun part is to not worry about what the end result will be. The only thing I really did that directly related to the photo was the hair...surprisingly this is all very relaxing and fun, goes quickly because once you make a line or design, the rest of the space is determined.

I worked on quality sketch paper, a Sharpie, and a smaller sharpie pen with this one. I did rouge her face with some colored pencil, but restrained from adding more color to this one. Barbie does have a touch of a Renaissance collar here, but I was only extending or echoing the original shape.  This ended up inkling Elizabeth the I...but then BMR would make a great Elizabeth. There was bleed through with good markers, so I always have an extra paper protecting the next page in my sketch book.

Last Week another portrait.

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Mather Class Handout

The next week's portrait prompt. A little discussion about Picasso and how he dissected and reassembled faces in his work. Here we used a  technique where an oval was drawn for a face, then other large intersecting shapes (Oval, Square, triangle, diamond, etc.)were added in marker, then some facial features added/or not and patterning inside the shapes. We were encouraged to be free in our placements.

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I chose to work with color in this one, once all my intersecting lines were done. I had no idea who or what this person was...

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I was freer with this one, and really just played. One eye was upside down, the nose exaggerated and stretched sidewards. The planes of the face ended up being part of the loops and shapes we freely drew.

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While interesting, the figure seemed to be just floating...I grounded the head with the left triangle below the ear in dark, that helped, Then I wanted to balance the dark into the upper right corner. I started scribbling stars, we were at the end of our time, so very fast. Then I colored in those sections with a deep midnight blue.

Totally unplanned my gentleman/woman gazing at the stars became 

"Copernicus meets Picasso". 

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My 5-Below alcohol markers bleed through the paper, and here is my 'ghost' sheet to protect my sketch book. This was interesting and fun.

October's Theme was TEXT ART, again with some interesting applications. I have already shown you examples of this in a previous post,

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HERE.

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I think this was the most controlled example we have had this Fall, numbers and letters.

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I'm a lousy direction follower, but really try to do what the prompts are. It is amazing to see all the different results from the same prompts within the class participants. 

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A GRID, Numbers, Letters and intersecting shapes...wow!

Coming up with different designs in the grid boxes was the hardest part, but working within a short time 35-40 minutes is a challenge. I did do the frame and some of the colors after class, in order to bring out the letters and numbers...otherwise it was quite a jumble. Another fun project.

Mid-September I had a Surrealism class, which was quick and I worked in colored pencils, markers and drawing pencils.

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The Mather handout and example from Joan Miro.

We were encouraged to basically scribble/fill the page, add color just free, a no subject matter drawing experience.  Drawing with images/lines/squiggles, as well as color, blank spaces and blocks of color. 

I think of it as 'Ouija Board Drawing'. Your hand is connected to your brain, whether you are conscious of it or not...so---this sort of drawing is a peek into your brain and maybe even unconscious emotions?????????

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I remember I had thought of a peacock, but then went off on a tangent with this, just having some fun with the new markers...and was working very fast. 

Too much fun!

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This one was really fast, I actually started before class and finished this later.  When I take photos of sections of these art pieces they are quite interesting blown up. I may cut this up and use it in some multimedia piece. The cool part is you can enlarge and print and reassemble...? 

Then the Automatic Drawing class started.

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During class I worked with new colored pencils (soft PrismaColor set-not quite chalk like but blendable), Sharpies, Drawing pencils, Charcoal pencil and Alcohol markers. 

 I was just having fun with the different media...and shapes, think: unintentional scribbling, LOL. When I was working, I was spinning the piece around to not rub the soft pencils/charcoal with my hand/arm. 

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And I found, I liked this piece better on the landscape side, when I look at it this way I see something entirely different. 

Mather Senior Art Classes which are FREE

Fun with shapes, lines and COLORs...gosh I love these classes.

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 Sandi Magle

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