I have had a blog and website previously but I, in 2016 started working on my Master's in Education and I found something had to give. It ended up being my regular artistic practice. Not that I wasn't doing creative things but they were part of the job, as a teacher, but not for my artistic growth. I'd been working in a sketchbook and creating mostly abstract drawings that focused on line, shape and colour.
While I liked doing them I really wasn't excited about making them. They didn't really challenge me and it wasn't a direction I wanted to keep going. I did sign up for a painting course that was interesting but again, it was an abstract painting course and it really didn't connect with what I wanted to do. Which I couldn't have articulated to you at the time, I just knew it was "ok" but not quite right.
As I was nearing the research part of my thesis I decided to sign up for a painting class. My thesis was exploring how my teaching and artistic practice are intertwined. In retrospect it was just a coincidence that I signed up for this course while working on my thesis. The majority of my research was in the classroom and I was trying to add a studio portion to my research. I took multiple courses which included an in person pottery class, a online pottery class and then this painting workshop with David Langevin in Edmonton.
The workshop of using layers, acrylic mediums and a painting process similar to Renaissance paintings. Our process in class was to watch him paint, to learn the process and then copy what he was painting. I remember him saying that we were not making "Art" meaning that we were learning a process but copying someone else's artwork, exactly, was not the same as learning the process and applying it to your own vision and creations. Above you can see my paintings from the workshop and below is the painting that we were referencing. Big difference!
But, I loved the process. The layers and building the composition were really interesting and reinvigorated my passion for painting. As part of my thesis and for a local art exhibition I created this painting using the same process. I completed this in the summer of 2019.
I then went on to experiment with portraits.
So that has been a bit of my painting evolution over the past three years. I continue to paint and have been painting a series about trees recently. I'll write about that series soon and I will also write about my pottery that I began doing during my thesis.
Comments