Mather Creative Mindfulness: Lake Shore Organic Shapes

Mather Creative Mindfulness:Lakeshore Organic Shapes.

I totally love my Monday late afternoon class with Casey. The Mather classes are geared towards seniors, but honestly how fun the prompts are and free spirited.

This week the guide was to just work with organic shapes. I had been thinking so much of the beach in my hometown on Lake Michigan. I'll be visiting later this week and I will definitely stop at the lakeshore and beach.

We were encouraged to begin with large free lines and then some organic shapes. 

For me the idea of water and sand, seaweed and critters in the lake. Lake Michigan is full of rocks, fossils, polished glass, bits, small shells and birds picking the shoreline

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From the outlines we were encouraged to make concentric lines following our main shapes. The example was in black and white and then red. Well, you know how I love color by now....so I think I used at least a dozen. 

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I think I like it this way.....Definitely a fun exercise. Sometimes scribbling is just a wonderful way to pass an hour or so. 

My lines are a bit shakey, but I love the layering of the colors of my alcohol markers from 5-Below...you can't beat the price. Every time I use them I discover a new combination of colors and marks.

Hope you enjoy my 'Lakeshore Organic Shapes'.

Thanks to Mather Free Online Classes for Seniors

 Information: HERE. 

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Sandi 

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Creative Mindfulness with Casey: Peru Inspirations.

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We have had two Creative Mindfulness Mather classes this month with Casey with prompts from Peruvian Art.

Mather Classes

Mather classes

Casey took a trip to Peru in May...and came back so excited about all the arts, fabrics, scenery of the country which she will be sharing for the month of June. 

Mather classes

Our first class on Peru was Rainbow Mountain or Mt. Cuzco, Peru. Yes, this is a real place. There are a ton of photos on this location, and it seems the colors are different certain times of the year. The shot on the right is an actual photo...and you can see the tiny people at the base of the red part, walking. Left is Casey's take on the scene.

Yes, the hues can be very bright, depending on the angle of the sun and time of year. 

Here is a clip of a Pinterest photo...

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I love the jacket that has all the colors and variations in it similar to the hills. The colors occur because of all the minerals in the different layers that were upheaveled when Teutonic plates converged and created the Andes mountains.

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Anyway, our prompt was to draw our own mountain, and hills, background and sky and fill in each layer with whatever color we wanted.

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Creative Mindfulness is all about getting lost in your work, and filling in all the stripes of my mountain with pencils was very soothing. I might try a water color in the future,  I  increased the width of the lines in the foreground, to give an idea of detail and closer proximity, and used more faded colors in the background hills. I scribbled the sky and clouds without any details.

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I used black Sharpies, pencil, eraser, and colored pencils, and later watercolor washes.

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I do love becoming lost in a project...it's the journey not the destination.

The next week, we had something entirely different.

HANDWOVEN FABRICS. 

Here I used a few pencils, markers, and some water color washes, and I chose to tape off some straight lines...because I simply can't make a long straight line....LOL.

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The patterns are from weavings in clothing and rugs. Peru is known for it's Alpacas and Lamas and some sheep, and the gorgeous uses of natural dyes and colors.

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We were encouraged to make lines, similar to the ones on the left example.

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A black and white breakdown of all the images in the block patterns was provided on a worksheet. 

Mather handout

Enlargement of some of the motifs used in the fabric example. These showed the simplicity of the images. I chose to use some for my blocks, as well as horizontal dividing bars to break up the designs. Again this was a starting point for our own take on the patterns.

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I used a light sticky tape for my 3/8" lines...way easier to do than drawing long straight lines and protecting the surface from my screwups while adding my designs.

 I didn't remove the tape until all the drawings and coloring with pencils was done. Once removed, I washed all the areas with earth-toned subdued watercolor washes.

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The muted washes filled in all the blank spaces and didn't overtake any of the pencil sketching. I did add the shading on the stripes afterward with pencils as they were too blank for the rest of the design. I criss-crossed my brushstrokes to give the idea of warp and weft. Here you can see where I removed my outside tape and then just had to add one more swoop of the brush.

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The larger images on the right and left edges were what I imagined would be on a rug. 

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I took some of the motifs from the right and enlarged them for the outside left, and similar for the right side. Again, experimenting with my take on the subject. 

Mather Classes

I really love these Mather Classes for the different artists/artforms we explore each week. I really enjoyed both of these artforms and the information on Peruvian art.

Again, Mather Senior Classes are free on Zoom for 

Seniors over 55....and are available, HERE. 

I appreciate the interaction and being able to ask questions, share on a community facebook page...and most important LEARN new techniques and materials, in a safe and congenial space. The instructors I've had,  are all Art Therapists and excellent.

Have you ever done 

Artwork from a vacation trip? 

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 

 

Another Mather Project: Three Dimensional Floral Art

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Rip, Tear, Scribble Assemble.

    Dis-assmeble, Glue and then start again. PHEW!

I logged in 20 minutes late for my Mather Creative Mindfulness class..I had been so busy gardening that day, I had literally dozed off late in the afternoon and almost missed the 5:30pm class.

Anyone else pooping out at late afternoon after gardening???

Well speaking of gardening...the project

subject was to be a vase full of (3-dimensional) flowers constructed from scrap papers. 

I keep a small file of small bits of papers, photos, magazine tears, scrapbook papers just for this.  I also had some alcohol ink small 6x8 pieces that had been experimental, but very vibrant. I saved those just for this project.  

The artist highlighted was Nicolette Valikoski.

Nicolette is a current working artist in mixed media, oils, acrylics but her signature is some sort of three dimensional aspect in her art.

Nicolette's vases here are painted paper then cut into a vase shape. The flowers and leaves are all constructed from ripped papers, glued, crushed, folded and applied to the paper in floral and leaf patterns.

Simple supplies needed...I used Elmer's clear glue..(love it) I don't know how long it will last, but these are fun project. It adheres pretty fast, and disappears. I also had a set of Color Shift Folk art paints, a purple, teal, lime and magenta, similar to the colors of papers I was working with. I didn't know if I would need them or not. I also used a charcoal pencil and a scissor to rough sketch some shapes and enhance others.

Time to PLAY and have FUN!

Since I was so late in the game, I opened my scrap folder and started with a black cardstock vase shape. I used my paper in the landscape position. I decided on a light green background on the edge left. The coral was too bold for my chosen papers.

I cut some leaves from scrapbook paper, some from a water color sample. See below.

I had  quickly rough torn the background leaves from emerald green thick cardstock...they were very raggy, So the scissors cut leaves were a bit of relief from all the shagginess. 

These painted water colored papers and alcohol test designs gave me a wide variations in textures and styles. I had just cleaned out my Tulip bed that day---and so it was Tulips...an easy quick flower---basically three triangular shapes torn, bent, and  over lapped on each other---like the lower right. 

I made long full tulip leaves from the printed cut scrapbook paper in white and moss green geometric patterns.

In the 30 minutes or so I knew I had to work, I just couldn't tackle peonies, magnolias, or roses...

I really do love the sample photos...look at her sites..she had lovely work.

Nicolette Valikoski

Working on my background leaves first...I worked in balances of a bit of each type of leaf across the background the flowers were applied last. 

Again, entire project was done in about 25-30 minutes...PHEW! Some of the Tulips were flat applied and this one was curled and folded. The glue was great to work with.  The patterned tulip leaves were either bent in loops or folded in seams. a few stems were made cut straight strips from the edge of green painting scraps.

Working on my background leaves first...I worked in balances of a bit of each type of leaf across the background the flowers were applied last. 

To make sure the watercolor leaves looked like realistic, I quick-drew some scribbles on them for veins and shadows.

I had bought some Pansies over the weekend, so the other flowers were three/four petaled round flowers sort of like Pansies. I added a few dots of yellow opaque water color yellow to give them a center. 

A few petals on the lower right were added to balance out the composition.

Last...the black bowl vase was too stark, so I used dots of the Purple Fold Art Color Shift paint. The dots were applied by dipping the wood end of a round paint brush in the paint and then on the paper...to give little mounded circles. Easy peasy way to paint dots.

Folds and creases to give dimension.

Charcoal pencil details.

Angle to show how the three dimensional the bouquet really is.  And, the Dots are drying and iridescence is showing.  

I'm really loving the mixed media options this type of project provides. I need to start doing something everyday when the gardening is under control. We tried to hire someone to do clean up on our lot, but no one seems to want the small jobs and bids go unsubmitted. So, I'm, doing it. slowly

I let my flowers float off the page. I may mount this on some sort of dark slightly patterned paper (painted or printed). We will see, it will need a shadow box frame, so I might be on the look out for switching the 3Dimensional pieces into.

Then again, it was just for FUN, PLAY, and Freeing up those inhibitions. It's just paper, glue and 25 minutes ...LOL. 

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE JUST FOR FUN THIS WEEK???

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 

Mather Mixed Media Project with Interesting results

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One of the reasons I take these Mather classes for seniors is to loosen up, experiment and work with new materials. After 45 years stuck in clay, I really wanted to spread my artistic wings and reawaken my childhood zeal over all art mediums. Mather offers everything from poetry, writing, crafts, exercise, educational classes free for seniors over 55.

Free online classes for seniors: Mather Classes

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Creative Mindfulness classes are based on mindfully centering yourself, then letting go, add a little art history which leads us to working with prompts based on a particular artist's art. 

This week, Ketki Fadnis was the selected artist. Ketki is a self-taught Pune, Indian artist who states, 

"Art is a healing process of body to mind and mind to soul".

How completely true. When I was going through my third knee replacement and had to wait so long...I soothed myself through watercolor painting.

Mather handout

Ketki works in different medias, abstract as well as these amazing florals where she paints an entire canvas and then blocks out a background around a design, here she chose floral flower pots. I love the movement that crosses across her shapes. 

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We were given the choice of any type of different materials. Here I am working with my alcohol markers  on 12x12 cardstock. I really like how well the cardstock accepts any media with minimal stretching or peeling. 

Here we were encouraged to fill a page with shapes, lines swirls and doo-dads. This scribbling was very quick, maybe 3-5 minutes.

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I'm trying to empty this watercolor palette so I can clean and have a fresh start, so I was limited to what was left on the palette. Thinking I would use alcohol marker as the background in black..so I went bright in choosing my colors.

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You can see I was pretty random with the colors, but I like how the blue lines show lighter under the transparent/translucent water colors. We had to work very fast. 

Some people worked in pastels, oil pastels, crayons, charcoal, colored pencils (tedious),  or markers as well as watercolors. The recommendation was to do acrylics to do the back spaces.

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With a white (which didn't show up) then a black charcoal pencil I outlined my vases and then leaves. I originally thought of turning the paper around and cutting out my shapes an mounting them on another page, but I followed directions and used acrylic on top of the alcohol markers and watercolors. 

Since I used quick washes...the watercolors dried pretty fast. 

It took almost 3 coats of paint on the background to get it to this stage. I may enhance or add a table or line in black..as these are floating in space, which bothers me.

If I do this technique again, I'll wait long enough for it to be completely dry before doing the background. Bleeding was minimal but persistent, so that would be a good idea. Maybe working on three or four of these at a time would work giving you time to let everything dry. 

The Apple Barrel acrylic paint from a Mather kit (rate this as kid quality only) light blue acrylic was what I had on hand without trundling downstairs in search of some better paint...the class moves so fast. I would definitely use a better paint with better coverage and a more flat finish.

How About Give this Method a Try!

and HAVE FUN!

Even great for kids on a smaller scale, maybe turn the finished Scribble that's colored over into hand cut out shapes..houses, pots, plants cars and then mount them on colored paper.  Great dexterity project for all ages.

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

Whimsy Wednesday

Love Your Creativity

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi