Transcripts
1. Welcome to Meditative Drawing: Are you looking to get out
of a creative rut or maybe expand your style or just
relax and create art? Take a journey with me as
we explore why we create, get inspiration,
and walk through ways to transform it
and make it more ran. And in the end, we'll have an abstract or
non objective piece of work. My name is Taylor and I'm
an artist and educator. I've had about a decade of experience in
formal education. I'm not only an art teacher, but I also run my
own art business. So many of us struggle to find our voice in the art world. I, myself, have
wrestled with this. After years of
studying, teaching, and creating my own work, I finally found a style
and practice that fits me. While I was on a trip, I found myself far away
from my studio with limited supplies and an
intense need to find some mental reprieve from a particularly
stressful school year. Being an art teacher and a free lance artist
sounds like fun, but it's still a lot of
work I was grappling with, enjoying the process
of creating wall, still feeling excited and
successful in my art. And most importantly, I also desperately needed a way
for my mind and heart to heal from the most
stressful year I had ever experienced in
my professional career, I discovered a way to create
these meditative drawings, which I was then able to translate into a
variety of media. Including my hand painted
beach glass jewelry, which I'm really excited about. This class will help you explore ways to find your
unique place in art. We will take a look
at why we create, how to get inspiration
and expand upon it, some modern creative practices, and some simple art principles
like balance and contrast, and how to make
your art look good. This class is for learners
who feel maybe stuck in a rut for people that maybe just want to push themselves
out of their comfort zone. Who need a creative outlet. Or just need to relax
through the simple joy of creating in a post
pandemic culture, we need art more now than ever. It's my great hope with this
class that students are able to find a unique
way to mix things up, all while still saying true
to our authentic self. Now it's on to the next section, gathering supplies in
our class project.
2. Project Intro: For our class project, you'll create a non objective
or abstract piece of work. Along the way,
we're going to try a multitude of different
modern creative practices. One of the reasons
that I chose to create this class is because a
lot of younger artists, they struggle with taking
ideas and transforming them. In my ten years of being
an art instructor, I've noticed that there's been a significant
increase in that like blank paste syndrome that we see kind of like writer's block. So to get ready for the class, I want you to consider the
materials that you could use. I'm going to be working
with acrylic paint. I'm going to be working
with a squeegee or a board. Some mixed media paper
scissors, glue spray. Ahi, maybe some paint, pen gel pens, colored pencils, magazines or like an ad. Maybe even a journal
to take notes on. Or you could print out the worksheet guide
for this class. Think about what you get excited
to use in art or maybe a tool that you haven't
really been able to play with yet along the way. Please feel free to
put your own spin on any of these techniques
that I show you. This class is about helping
you generate ideas and different ways to use your supplies for your
first action step. Gather the supplies that you
think you would like to use for this class and lay them
out on your workspace. Take an overhead
picture of them and then post to this class project. Let's head to the first lesson.
3. Why do we create?: Everyone creates for
different reasons. Some of us do it for
an innate desire to just spilled
or maybe control. Some of us need
that to relax and distract our brains
are most primitive. Human desire though, is our
need to make things special. I really believe
that all of us have a little bit of
an artist inside. Some of us just got out
of touch with that. One of my favorite
books that I read in college was artistic beauty, pleasure in human
evolution by Dennis died. I highly recommend checking
out that buck per ticket. So think about why you create, is it personally
or professionally? But get even more specific. What drives to create? What gets you out of that
and gets you to sit down. What does apply that you've met, select it and you
maybe want to use. Is there a new tool
that you would like to experiment with
during this class? Now ask yourself, why do you
want to practice? Right now? Is it lakhs to get out of sight and intention
for yourself, for your next action, step up to the class discussion, why are you creating today? I'll see you in the next lesson.
4. Inspiration: Looking at other’s work: So this next lesson
we're gonna talk about copying versus
transformation. What I want you to do
for this next lesson is to practice some mark-making. And by that, I mean, we're going to copy, I've heard this phrase by Austin Kleon. He says that good artists
copy, great artists steal. But we're going to start by
learning to copy some of the marks of people that we
are inspired by currently. Two of the artists
that I love currently are Abby Houston
and Henri Matisse. One of them is a new
artist who's still alive. And one of them you've
probably heard about if you have done any sort
of work in the arts. So what I like to do when
I am learning a new style, or I'm trying to take
something that I like and make it more my own is
I begin with copying. I'll take a whole page of my sketchbook or multiple pages. And I'll go through a bunch of their artwork and I look at what kinds of things
do I actually enjoy about each
of their pieces? I might take a look at their Instagram or some
art history books, things I've seen online. I tried to mimic those. And it doesn't always have to be in the media that they're using. I'm just looking at
shapes, lines, textures. If you want to try to mimic with the materials that
they're using. Great. But if not, that's even a step further into transforming something to
make it more your own anyway, for your next action step,
I want you to think, is there anyone or
anything that you've seen recently that you're inspired by who is informing your work. We're trying to figure that out. And what parts of that work or the artist's
work Do you like? I want you to create
a whole page, at least a page where you try
to replicate what they do. And like I said,
it doesn't have to be using the media that they do, but just look at those shapes, those lines, and the
textures that they create. Don't try to recreate
the whole image. Just take little
bits and pieces of those things that you
like about their work. Take a look at several pieces or several different things that you have to be put on your Pinterest board or
you've done Instagram. Maybe you save something on TikTok and take out
the bits that you like and try to replicate that
in front of you on paper. I will see you in
the next lesson.
5. Let’s Create! Modern Art technique: Squeegee Pull : Alright, so in the
next few lessons, we're actually going
to start creating. We're gonna be
playing a little bit and we're going to try creating, using a few different modern
practices along the way. Feel free to alter or change things up. If
you feel compelled. Know that it's okay if you
try to copy what I'm doing. But also know it's not going
to look exactly the same. We will be working on expanding
upon these things anyway. So if you're stumped on ideas, just follow along with me. A lot of people see
these next things I'm about to show you and
they try to recreate it, but then they stop there. You wouldn't have even
tried these previously. Let's try it out, but remember, don't get too attached to those because that's not
the finished piece. Remember that anyone can
create with these techniques, but it's what you do after that will set your style apart. So what I like to do for the squeegee pool is
sometimes we'll even paint directly on the
paper with my paint tube. Sometimes I'll take
a popsicle stick and apply little strips
or dots to it. But just have fun playing
with color and try different papers where you place maybe your color on the top, maybe you place
them in the middle, like I'm placing my yellow. Then you're going to
simply take your squeegee. Or in this case, I'm just
using a thick piece of cardboard and I'm dragging the paint so I kinda
angle it down. I'm going about a
45-degree angle. But something else I like to
do if I've extra paint is kind of paint with that
around the extra space. Another thing I like doing is taking my squeegee
are bored and I kinda curve around different
areas of my paper. So try twirling it, try moving it in
different shapes. Don't feel like you just have
to drag it straight down. You could also try
wiping your squeegee are bored on a separate
piece of paper. It makes some
interesting textures like you see on the left there. And even color combinations. For your action step. Share a picture of your
favorite squeegee pool on the class project. I'll see you in the next lesson.
6. Image Transfers: Image transfers have been
around for a long time. There are so many ways to use pre-existing images
to support your work. The first step is
to get an image, but no, it will be
backwards once transferred. I really liked
those glassy images that magazines have.
Those work best. Sometimes newspaper
clippings can work okay too. If you have a laser printer and you want to
print something out, that will also work. If you have an inkjet
printer though, just know that your
image will bleed. So those ones aren't
the best to use. There's plenty of things
out there that you can find in, like I said, magazines or newspapers, or even ads that you
get in the mail. Once you have your image, what you're gonna do is paint over the image and then we're going to adhere it to another surface like
your mixed media paper. You just want to make
sure that your image is touching wet paint when
it's on your surface, after it's adhered, burnished, or covered, rub the image down. You can use your fingers or
even the back of a spoon. Basically you just don't
want to scratch the paper. You want to make sure
that it's adhered, then you're going to let it dry. And once it is dry, you can then take a
little bit of water and dab your finger in the water and then just slowly blot and create these little tiny circles
while you lightly and carefully rub the paper
backing away from the image. This will take awhile, so be gentle and be patient when my image
transfer is pretty much done. I also like to take
a paper towel and lightly wipe away
the extra paper. For your action. Step
from this lesson, try creating a new
image transfers. Once you've completed
them, make sure you upload them to
the class project. I'll see you in the next lesson.
7. Sgraffito : For this next modern technique, we're going to talk
about graffito. Scruffy toe has been
around for a long time. One of my favorite pastimes was using scruffy
toe on ceramics. Scruffy toe basically
means to scratch. You can do scruffy toe and a multitude of different media. For this exercise, you can
use a painted piece of paper that you have dried or you could use paper
that's already colored. You're going to start by
painting on top of your paper, whether it was something
that you previously painted on or that
colored piece of paper. Then take something that you can lightly scratch without actually digging into the paper and
begin drawing over top. One of the most
common ways to do str veto, that's really simple. It's just using the
back of a paint brush. You could also use a popsicle
stick or the back of a pen. Again, I like to mimic some of those motifs that we were
talking about earlier. So think about those shapes. Think about the textures, the lines that you could
create for your action. Step, layer, a piece
of paper that you have with paint and try out
That's graffito method. I'll see you in the next lesson.
8. Modern Drawing Practices & Transforming: For our next lesson,
we're going to be talking about some modern
drawing techniques. One of my favorite things to do is something that matisse did, which he called
drawing with scissors. Later in life, matisse
couldn't paint, so he would have an assistant
do it for him on paper. He would then cut out
various shapes and then piece them together
in a new composition. Think about those shapes
and those motifs that you also saw in the things
that you were inspired by. How can you implement those
into your current page? Look around and see if you
can find any shapes that you really enjoy that are
already preexisting. Can you trace those shapes? Can you bring those forward by maybe taking a
colored pencil and blending your shading some of those areas to push them
back or bring them forward. What I like to do when
I see areas like this, I sometimes will outline first, but I also like to fill
in with bigger shapes. I think I'm actually
going to use pink. I'm going to fill in like this. Some kind of tracing
the areas that already exist on the inside. I kinda start with
those bigger areas and then I'll fill in between. So what I might do
some smaller shapes or making sure you dry before you're in that area
if you're using pink pen. I find this practice
to be really relaxing. Doing this way. I like to go back and then layer inside kind of like
concentric circles. If you're familiar with that. It doesn't have to be circles. Can be lines like I did here. Or you could do other shapes. But experiment with
your preferred mark. And what these smaller areas, although sometimes just
go in with dots though, I could put some of this paint on a pallet on this
side and then take a brush and then mimic some of those shapes with
a skinny brush. Another idea is that while
the paint is still wet, you could try doing that
scruffy toe method. Do you have another idea? Go for it. For your action step. Use one of those previously
painted papers and try drawing on top of it with the techniques mentioned
in this lesson. I'll see you in the next one.
9. Making your Art Look "Good": Okay, so now you have all
of these pieces of paper. You've tried a bunch
of different painting and drawing techniques. So now it's time to
make it look good. We're going to take a
bunch of those papers and shapes that you've been
working with and cut them up, combine them into
a new composition. So you might want to
get a new piece of paper to put all
those things on. Or you could start with one of those base papers that you painted on if you
really like that. This is where a lot of
people could get hung up. But one of the simplest
ways that we can talk about making things look better is through those
principles of design. Now, there's a lot of different
principles and design, but we're going to
just talk about 21 is balanced and the other is
contrast. With my students. I tell them to focus on these two because I think that they're the easiest for
students to understand, but they make a really
big visual impact. So what are the elements and principles of art and design to make this as simple as possible. I think about the elements
far as building blocks. So if you ever had those Boyden shaped
blocks and you're a little we had the
arch and then there was a cone and then there
was a cube and the sphere, shape, color line texture. Those are the elements of art. If we took those building
blocks and then we organize those in a certain way, that would be balance, contrast. Those are those
principles of design. So that's how you kind of
elevated what is balance? Balance is really just the
distribution of visual weight. And yes, pictures, even flat
ones have weight to them. And what I like to
do to make sure that my pieces are
balanced as I think about kind of like a
teeter totter composition has red on one side. I always try to make
sure that it has a little bit of red on
the other side too, to help balance that out. I also think about the size of my shapes that I'm creating. So if I have a really big shape
on one side of my Canvas, I always tried to, again, put about the same amount of visual space on
the other side, even if that means I break up that shape into some
smaller shapes, contrast is really
just difference. So it could be like a
difference of texture. It could be a difference of
color for your action step. With this one, I
want you to think about different ways
that you can start to organize your composition
and demonstrate contrast, and also ways that
you could balance. So think about color,
size, and shape. So if you have cut out a piece of your painted paper down here, maybe cut out some smaller
pieces in place, those up top. If you have something that's
really smooth down here, maybe on top of it you could
make some lines or make some shapes to just really make that pop
a little bit more. I'll see you in the next lesson.
10. Let's Reflect!: We can tell you've
begun to define your own style and
your influences. You've learned how to
take some inspiration and make it more your own. You tried some modern painting
and drawing technique. You practice using
balance and contrast more intentionally and your work
for your last action step, I would love to see your
projects posted to this class. You can start looking through some of the other
projects that people may maybe even comment and show some support
for those people. Follow me tailored
dot art design on Instagram or TikTok if
you enjoyed this class, thank you for creating with me today and I hope to
see you next time.
Taylor Smith, Artist. Educator. Wellness Advocate
