Wow what a lot of learning.

Over the last few weeks of observing children and their art making activities - my own experience as a child has reminded me that  children's art is sometimes  something a parent washes of the walls or the sofa. I remember a wonderful experiment of melting wax crayons on a white radiator which got me into a lot of bother.

.So it was interesting to see what might happen when one was creating art as an adult  in a home with children around..My youngest child likes to make art and drew and painted some wonderful pictures which had real meaning in them.He used the art materials which were on the table - without me telling him to and  just created art. The other siblings were not interested and were more involved in computer games.If a board with watercolour paper is prepared - there has to be one prepared for him .He enjoys the interaction and also loves to bake - which is another creative activity..

 Over the last few weeks I started my visual arts project for the UWS course. At first the fear of failure loomed - that fear of - well if you don't get an A plus then you are not good enough. Thankfully there is no grade just a pass or not. Then the task to find some material which would become a stimulus for creative interaction was  next. How does one record images - a camera -did some recording. Then it was important to use the art skills which had been honed thus proving to all that I really am an artist.I really do enjoy using pencil and ink and have a strong love of vibrant colours.
However through all this enjoyment  -  feelings of guilt tried to wash over me  and  voices of parents saying  things like -why are you wasting time doing art - etc - did not stop me - my art became my therapy...

So it was very liberating to start creating work and to actually like what was being done. My mood of despondency and guilt began to go and after about two days - the real me began to feel happy doing art again..
Memories of parental figures returned haunting me with words like -" get a job first to fall back on then do your art" - kind of made sense. Now it would be  great to combine a job i.e. teaching with doing art..

My studio is in the house which is convenient. During my initial art practice my art inclinations have moved towards printmaking and producing pattern  This means that I would have to go to a print-makers workshop and moving out of my comfort zone of producing art in the house.That is an exciting prospect which I have still to explore...

Here are some of the progressions I did for my Visual Arts Project. I started off with a pile of vegetation and looked for the beauty in it and focused on one area of interest. I used a small viewfinder to help me find a good image.
The first one was from an bunch of oak leaves. As luck would have it there was a collection of Acrylic Ink in the shed which I found at the right time to use. They had belonged to my mother in law who is a good artist.
I really liked the pure clear colours and the gold! So put them to good use. See below.

Here are some images taken from the sketch of poppies.