Faux Fox

I am officially crossing challenge no. 25 off the list, having now completed my 24x36 work of art.

A while back I wrote a bunch of hullaballoo about watercolor, about how I love the fickle nature of it and the flowing, colorful beauty of the medium. That is all still true, but I have found that my abilities are comical when it comes to working with it. My talents lie in geometric shapes and defined spaces and lines that I can measure. It's mathy art.

This was inspired by a fox wire sculpture I saw:

Copycat

A huge blank watercolor canvas sits in my bedroom, waiting to be painted. I've been trying to beef up my art skills before I paint something on it. I know I could just buy another canvas if it turned out horribly, but me being me, I'd rather be awesome at it the first go-round and throw a self-hate tantrum if it's not perfect.

Anyway, I decided to try and recreate some watercolor art that I admire on my practice paper. Here are the inspiration paintings (click on each for source):

 And here are my versions:

Sigh.

I think I invented some countries in the first one. The second one is not that bad, but the color choices were a mistake.

Onward!

I Made "Art"

This weekend I accepted challenge no. 25 by attending my first art class since elementary school. Turns out my skills haven't developed much since that time. But it was a lot of fun, and unexpectedly therapeutic.

The class took place at the Brooklyn Artists Gym. Our instructor was Allison, a local watercolor artist. She began with the obligatory boring stuff: brush care, paint and paper options, the importance of not eating paint, and so on. We then learned twelve different watercolor techniques. As you can see, I mastered each one:

There were eight other students taking the class. All women. The chatty emotional perfectionist sitting next to me made for an entertaining experience to say the least. What happens when a chatty emotional perfectionist spills a cup of water all over her paper? Hilarious. That's what happens.

Watercolor is not the medium for perfectionists. You have to learn to work with the water and know that sometimes it will not do what you want it to do. This is exactly what I like about watercolor. I like not being in total control of what emerges on the paper. Me? Not wanting to be in control? Some of you are very confused right now.

I couldn't help snapping some pictures of the table, which looked like art itself:

My paper towel also took on a beautiful appearance. Art everywhere!

Finally, we took a stab at painting something. Allison placed a variety of objects in the center of the table and told us to paint what spoke to us. This plant spoke to me. He said, "Do a mediocre job of painting me."

Actually, I don't think it turned out too bad. And I even had enough time to do a second painting:

The next day I went to Blick Art Materials and bought an 18x24 watercolor canvas, brushes, paint, and some watercolor paper to practice on. I intend to create a masterpiece, so stay tuned. 

Hitting the Gym

Challenge #25 is to take an art class and create an original painting. Come March 10th, I can cross this one off the list. I've just signed up for the Intro to Watercolors class at the Brooklyn Artists Gym. I chose watercolors because I love the delicate nature and soft lines and tones that this particular style lends itself to. BAG had good reviews on Yelp, my go-to feedback site, and their payment methods don't involve any arms or legs. I also chose this particular class because it seems to be one of the few that give you the freedom to paint what you want. Most of the others I found have everyone in the class painting the same thing, like a vase of flowers or some kind of landscape. Not really my thing.

Keep in mind that the only thing I've ever painted are my apartment walls. I have never in my life stood in front of a canvas and created art. While they say that "all levels of experience are welcome," I doubt they are prepared for the mind-blowing kindergarten-level skills I will be bringing to the workshop. I'm hoping that I'll be so bad that they think I'm good and I'll become some kind of accidental abstract watercolor genius, in which case you are all invited to my exhibition at MOMA in 2013.

I will share my final piece here on the blog. In the meantime, please enjoy these inspiring watercolor pieces that I find to be stunningly beautiful. Click on any of the images for their source.

Brigitte Bardot

Watercolor as website design

Breaking Challenge News!

Folks, there's been an exciting turn of events. One of my challengers has requested to change their challenge. According to the official challenge rules that I just made up, a challenge swap-out is allowed only if the following criteria are met:

1. The challenger initiates the change without an influence from the challenged.
2. The challenger submits an official change in writing.
3. The challenge being discarded has not yet been attempted or completed.

Since all three above were met, may I present to you the new challenge #25:

Get up every morning at the same time and get to bed at a reasonable time TAKE AN ART CLASS AND CREATE AN ORIGINAL PAINTING.

As to why this particular challenger decided to change their challenge, I cannot say for sure, but it sounded as if they felt that expressing myself through art would ultimately be a better life experience. I hope this doesn't make others want to change their challenges, especially since I have started almost half of them and look forward to the ones I haven't started yet.