6-23-19 Discovering my style

6-23-19 Discovering my style - student project

Discovering my style is something I've been trying to do for a while now. I've been taking classes here and have been able to replicate a lot of different things to my liking, but while I love learning, I really want to find my own artistic expression. Hopefully this class can help.

The first thing I notice is that I don't think I have the patience for pencil sketching. I mean, I don't care much for floral still life art, so it's never my first choice of subject. But also, timing an art exercise makes me feel like I'm taking a test and freaks me out a little. I can't rush to sketch anything and expect to be happy with it. So I suppose if I had to rush-sketch anything, I'm kinda glad it was a subject that I don't care for. Because I was glad to move on from it at the end of the 30 minutes.  I can tell that it's supposed to be flowers though, so we have that.

6-23-19 Discovering my style - image 1 - student project

Now, choosing my own media was great because I feel much more at home with watercolors. I didn't want to go with black, though, because I don't have a great black paint. So I went with indigo because it's the darkest blue I have. I think monochrome still captures the spirit of the exercise...? I did go over the 30 minutes on this one because it was just so close to "done" that I wanted to finish. Still just a sort of sketch, but I wanted to even things out.

6-23-19 Discovering my style - image 2 - student project

The third exercise was interesting (and again took me slightly over 30 minutes, but I'm a completionist, so I had to finish). I am notorious for saying that I have the worst memory in human history, so doing a painting from memory was new for me.  I found myself noticing things that I might not have noticed so quickly before.  Also discovering that I don't have a great sense of scale! lol  I liked it, but I much prefer to paint from a reference, I think.  At least when it comes to scale and details.  I'm a very art-by-numbers girl, so I am better at replicating than creating, unfortunately.  Then again, perhaps more exercises like this would develop my creativity a bit?

I don't think that I normally start with the big washes/broad strokes, like the instructor said.  But I found myself doing that this time, perhaps by influence from the video.  I'm not sure what I think of that... whether it's something I would do in the future, or if it really even works for me, but I'm open to the possibility.  Thinking back on other paintings I've done, maybe I tend to work back to front?  This is something I'm going to have to pay more attention to in the future. 

6-23-19 Discovering my style - image 3 - student project

 

Now, I have actually completed watching the videos, but I haven't created any more works to go in this project.  I was incredibly surprised to find that I completely blanked and balked at the 4th and 5th assignments.  I couldn't think of *anything* I wanted to paint for the word "full."  In fact, I think I sat here for 10 or 15 minutes just trying to think of what I could create that fit.  Nothing.  I started to get really frustrated, and I don't do art to get frustrated.  So I decided to skip that one and move on to the 5th.  However, I had a similar experience with the wide open freedom.

I learned about myself that apparently I need structure.  In a weird way, this is disheartening for me.  I mean, I'm looking for my style of artistic expression, and when faced with a blank page and endless possibilities, I am gripped by fear and indecision.  What is the point of enjoying an art form if you have nothing to communicate through it?  Some things I'll need to explore on my own, I suppose.

Furthermore, I learned that I am not a "quick" artist, which can be a little detrimental when your chosen medium is watercolor! haha  I mean, clearly I can produce something in roughly 30 minutes, but my better work takes longer.

I also obsess over details.  I don't really want to, but that's what I've noticed.  I really would like to be a little more abstract, but so far I'm not there.  I didn't realize how difficult that could be.