A COLOR-MAD LESSON: FINDING ONE'S STYLE

Undersea and Night Sky

We had a rather interesting art assignment to work on over the weekend. Apparently, with people like me, who are new to making art, it is fairly common to become "color-blocked"-- spending way too much time obsessing over which colors will go best together, and way too little actually painting or drawing -- when the truth of the matter is, all colors work well together. Just look around you in nature!

Landscape and Floral

So, to help us get past that stage, our instructor had us do several little 4x5 sketches, giving us set topics. Then, we had to complete each one using only six watercolor pencils, which were chosen in a lottery of sorts. You'd be amazed at how liberating that is, not to have to waste any time at all on color selection! I began with the "night sky" assignment, then worked my way through "undersea", "floral", and finally "landscape." On the way, it turned out, I learned about a lot more than mere color selection.

You see, though I've had a fantastic time with each of my three online art classes, one thing kept niggling at me. I'm an art-class chameleon! I went from making art Christy-style...

to Junelle-style...

to Joanne-style...

and was beginning to wonder if I would ever settle on my own particular style -- something that would set me apart from the rest. My hubby, who's mother was an artist, didn't seem too worried. When I signed up for my very first class he told me that I would probably pick up a little something from each teacher I worked with, but that eventually I'd just start "doing my own thing." This weekend, I finally felt it -- I knew what he was talking about. I struggled with that first night-sky landscape, doing what I thought I should do, but with each successive one, I got a little bit closer to doing what I wanted to do. For that final, day-time landscape, I was just about to sketch in a scene very similar to the first one, when I flashed on those little scraps of paper I had tucked into my new inspiration board...

and decided to do something altogether different!

So, no, I am not suddenly a "real artist" with a trademark style, but at least I have learned this much about myself: I hate, and really suck at, trying to draw things exactly as they are. But I love, love, love color and whimsey!