MATS Week 4 - Wall Art

I am in disbelief that four weeks have already gone by. Last week was wall art- I challenged myself to stay away from my typical process of paint/scan/photoshop collage/edit/add detail. I wanted to do it all by hand. I found last week fun, invigorating, agonizing, and difficult. For some reason- even though this was supposed to be our "free and easy" week- I really struggled. We each had a color scheme based on our bday (mine was blue/green), we needed it to be square, abstract, include some floral imagery, and a word or phrase. We were also encouraged to use collage elements. To me this felt like more "restrictions" than the previous week's "illustrate Tortoise & Hare, use hand-lettering" assignment. But I can see how many people found the wall art more enjoyable.

I'll show you what I ended up with- and then the steps that got me there...

There are many layers of gesso on this bad-boy- but I actually really like how it turned out. Although it feels different than my other work- it still has aspects of it that resonate with the other pieces. One of the hardest things for me was choosing a word. I didn't want to go super-inspirational and I didn't want to go too obscure. "Forage" fell perfectly in the middle between "Discover" and "Paidia & Ludus" (hub's suggestion). 

I started three canvases at once- all covered in a patchwork of green/blue inky squares. Here are parts of the two that did not make the cut:

There are elements in each that I like- but I'm so pleased with the minimal imagery and maximal texture I was able to get in my finished piece. I'm currently in the home stretch of week 5- can't wait to show you how this Make Art That Sells part A ends up!

Also- if you haven't seen my website update (full of new work)- check it out HERE!