ArtUnraveled 2014 (part 2)

The fourth class I took was a PanPastel class taught by Jill Berry. We used images printed from Google Earth and recreated them just with PanPastels on paper. I admit this class was frustrating to me but I am so glad I pushed through. The reason I struggled at first is because I like to mix my medias and for this I only had one media with a limited palette and very little experience. Oh, and this medium forced me to loosen up and my inner control freak was none too pleased. I quietly told him to take a hike. Jill was a patient and encouraging teacher who helped me "see" things in a different way. All in all - FABULOUS.

Here is the first piece I completed followed by the GoogleMap images I used as reference. If you read my blog lately you might recognize it. It is my Grandparents' house. I was about ready to pull my hair out when I reached the point when I could use some pastel pencils and put some details in there. Ahhh, much better.

The second one I completed is of the same area just zoomed out. I really like this one. You can see how I loosened up more and just played around with the colors. I kept myself from over blending and really let the texture appear. It becomes less about what is land and water and more about shapes and color.

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The Art of NOTAN was taught by Bett York. Basically you take one piece of paper in whatever shape and cut it. You do not add or take away anything. Just Google Notan and prepare to have your mind blown. By the end of class I felt like I had just taken a whole bunch of brain exercises. Fascinating!

This simple piece shows that it started out as a white square.

This was a rectangle

This started out as a square too

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My final class was taught by Dina Wakley and covered self portraits. We worked in our art journals and she taught us several techniques to use to incorporate our own images into our art. Things like making a stencil, tracing, and painting over a picture were covered. Here are a few (in progress) favorites from the class:

The left is a stencil I made from a photo of me at 4 years old. Yes, I was adorable. :) On the right I had fun dressing myself up in wild hair and makeup. Keep in mind that I did try to keep it classy with some pearls. :)

What am I thinking in this one? Not sure, but it might be along the lines of how awesome I look with fuchsia hair.