Who would have thought?!?
First of all, we have explored the (mis)conceptions we might have about what Fine · Art really is: is it the posh side of art? The painting and the drawing? The making of sculptures? The “being” an Artist? The hang around artists? I love this kind of discussion: is there a difference between art and craft? Do you need to be a good crafter in order to make good art? When do you start defining yourself as an artist? Can you make money as an artist?
And then, we actually started. So, forget all the (pre)conceptions I had about me and the glasses (see here) but instead we started by making signs simply with a fine black pen:
I really enjoyed taking the time to observe how my hand, wrist, and elbow worked together, using both hands (I am normally right handed) and even either standing up or sitting down). From there, we experienced a bit more:
and then we added the concept of light / medium / dark up the point of adding one single colour:
And up to then, everything went smooth and I was really happy to have somehow found my own mark, or my own hand, or even my own type of “making a mark”. I was content with myself that I found, in one day, something I was ok with settling into. That’s the kind of mark I like to leave and Thank You very much!
Because when we tried to add another medium to the equation, I wasn’t happy at all:
Pastels and I are not good friends, when mixed with pens, or pencils, or anything, to be honest. I did not like what I was trying to make, whatever idea I had in my head did not translate on paper. I was feeling really deflated.
But then, we turned to our glass/es and we tried to look at the object from other angles: definitely not having the glass right in the centre of the page, but I tried to play with the object and its shape:
And then I chose the third image, and played with it a little bit more:
… and I cannot decide if I like it or not. At that point, we used watercolour or gouache and a little piece of cardboard as a brush. And because I wanted to experiment a bit more, once at home I created this:
… this makes me happy. I have used watercolours, I have chosen on purpose bright colours, and I am content with the result. I like colour, for some strange reason, after all those years doing black and white photography, and I feel I would like to experiment more with bright vivid colours (I do have some ideas… let’s see what happens!)
In the meantime, pls meet theTOMATS:
SELF•REFL: exhausted.
And very self-conscious of how my fellow colleagues work, their “hand”, their “marks”, their previous experience. I have pinched some ideas in mark-making from them. Some of them are really very good and I am wondering what am I doing there…
Matilde Tomat 