Creative Mindfulness with Casey: Peru Inspirations.

Ad-Free Post

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...

Pinterest

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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

mather classes

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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

oldnewgreenredo

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:

Love Your Creativity

Tuesday Turn About

Talking About It Tuesday

Whimsy Wednesday

Homestead BlogHop

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 

 

Mather Senior Art Classes

 Ad-Free Blog

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

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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...

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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". 

oldnewgreenredo

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,

oldnewgreenredo

HERE.

oldnewgreenredo

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

oldnewgreenredo

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. 

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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?????????

oldnewgreenredo

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!

oldnewgreenredo

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.

oldnewgreenredo

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. 

oldnewgreenredo

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.

If You enjoyed this post please FOLLOW IT in the upper right hand corner, to get just one email of each AD-Free post.

I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

Share Your Style

Weekend Traffic Jam

Farmhouse Friday

Love Your Creativity

Metamorphosis Monday

Tuesdays with a Twist

Home Matters

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

Thanks ALWAYS for visiting!

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. Please don't use my photos without my permission.

 Sandi Magle

OldNewGreenRedo