If you've been receiving these posts for a while, you know how I encourage play. It's one of the best ways to regenerate our spirit and give us a little rest from being serious. And we never know when we might make
discoveries or find a new sense of freedom at the same time.
BREAK IT AND MAKE SOMETHING NEW
One playful exercise I enjoy is to take an image and find ways to do something fun with it, something totally new. Here are two little play sessions you might find
fun.
EXTRACT THE COLORS AND DO AWAY WITH THE DETAILS
These can be done with any image. Here's one I've chosen just to show you how the game works: (Use any medium, but if you're using oils or acrylics, do these
on gessoed card stock or small sheets of canvas or small panels, but don't devote a stretched canvas to this or it might not feel like playing.)
Mix five piles of paint, each the approximate color and value of five general areas of the scene.
Using the large patterns of the scene as a guide, paint in flat areas of color according to where they appear in the scene. This is
called posterizing.
Using the same color mixes, grab an old ragged sponge, or if you have only new ones, sacrifice one of them by tearing pieces off it so that you have ragged edges.
Use THIS as your paint brush. Then, with the scene as your guide, do an abstracted version of it.
With all the energy we put into growing as artists, we need to nourish the child in ourselves, to give ourselves opportunities to just explore options for fun.
Finding ways to allow the artist child in us to play can smooth out all sorts of rocky roads.
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