Well, this was different ;)

In a good way!

I've been trying to 'keep more to myself' lately in drawing and painting. And I had actually already written down a focus for this year. I want to focus on painting nature and on taking inspiration from what I see in my garden and in the forest. The message or theme I want to convey in my work is the wild abundance and generosity of nature. 

I liked the systematic approach of this class, though I'm not sure I went about it all very systematically... 

One thing that stood out to me is that I would like to start trying to paint more 'full' compositions. So, not just objects like wild flowers or animals on their own, but big sweeping compositions that draw the viewer into the scene. I'm not good at that, so that is were my my challenge lies!

I learned this from looking at all the inspiration I collected.

This also showed very clearly that I want to focus on storytelling and illustration and not on realism (like the botanical drawing i've done in the past). 

I worked with an image that stood out to me because it's so joyful and shows (for me) the wildness and abundance that I'm after in my work. It's a painting by Julia Crossland (you can see the original above).

This is my first copy.

Then another:

And then I started to change things up. First with collage, because I always love doing collage. I think it's such a playful, childlike thing to do. I like this painting best.

Then I did a painting with oil pastels. I'm not sure why I don't really like it...

And then from there I did two (more or less) original works based on a photo from my holiday in England last year.

In this last painting I really like the juxtaposition between the loosley painted tree and there more carefully rendered foreground. This shows me some direction of where I want to go. A pitfall for me is becoming to precious and tight with my work. I am very much attracted to a more loose style and while I was painting this last picture it actually felt like work! Which may be okay, but should not be the main feeling when making art! Right? I value play! And feel most happy when painting is experimental and playful.

I think this course brought me a lot, but it still needs some time to percolate ;)

Thank you, Claudia, I love your teaching style!