I'm quite behind because of travel and several work deadlines! But in week 4 of the MATS course, which was already two weeks ago, the market we were looking at was Wall Art. The assignment was to create a wall art piece that might be sold in Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie aimed at the 20 something year old women's demographic. It should include collage and some text and some floral motifs, and we were each assigned colors depending on our birthdate. My colors were red and yellow. Lilla also encouraged us to create something we would want to hang on our own walls.
I made three attempts in three different directions. My first one was painted on a 12" x 12" piece of wood and had a "circles" theme (see below). For my second attempt, I tried a grid structure and painted it on another 12" x 12" piece of wood (see above). .
For my third attempt, I tried something completely different and started my collage on a 25" x 25" piece of illustration board. This is a really huge size for me, as I usually work much smaller due to the constraints of my flatbed scanner! I also experimented more with prints. I had so much fun doing a bit during the first week of MATS with potato prints, and this time I broadened my veggie palette and used a variety of vegetables as well as some fruits (pomegranate and lemon).
My thought was to make a huge vase of flowers using the prints as the flowers. I didn't know if it would turn out, so I scanned my test piece and printed it out and cut out some shapes to arrange on a piece of paper.
Then I started painting my huge piece of illustration board. I have to admit it was intimidating to begin, but once i got started, I lost myself completely in the process! Then I glued down some pieces of tissue and paper and mesh to create a sort of landscape with a vase.
Then I broke out my squigee! I used to always paint with my squigee in art school -- I love the textures it creates.
Then I went to town making my "flower" prints with all of the veggies I had prepared.
After letting it dry, I scanned the whole thing into my computer (it took six scans!) and added some drawn flowers and text. I love this quote by Maria Rainer Rilke. For me personally, the "blooming" refers to a sort of creative abundance blooming from within -- sort of a positive affirmation. Here is what my final piece turned out to be.
There were SO many amazing pieces in the class gallery! For me, this week's assignment was so much fun, and I'm happy with my final piece. I feel like I was able to really open up and explore and create something just for myself, without thinking too much about the outcome. I was in the flow and I kept losing complete track of time. It reminded me of being in art school when I was completely committed to exploring different media and mark making. I never had never thought of wall art as a market before taking this course--this whole week was such an eye-opening experience, and I learned soooo much!