Tuesday, July 9, 2013

MATS Week 5 - Gift, plus my thoughts on the experience

Week 5 assignment


The final week of Make Art That Sells part A found us learning about and exploring the Gift market, and our final assignment was to create art for a zippered pouch that was jam-packed and hyper-lush, using imagery from our collections from earlier in the week, plus any other art we had created from the other assignments, if we thought it fit. I based mine on my favorite watch (which I wear for special occasions only) that belonged to my grandma. She received it for her 16th birthday, and it has her initials engraved on back. Its a lovely delicate art-deco piece, and I love love it.


I created this one digitally, scanning in my ink sketches, including hand-drawn numbers and words. I used Illustrator, and layered lots of different items and patterns on top of each other. All in all, I like the composition, and love the numbers and the big watch image, and that I used sketches again within the final art. Color for me has been so tough lately, though with this week's instructions telling us to make the art hyper-lush, I didn't worry too much about color, since I needed to use as much of it as I could. After loving the sketching part, I brought it into the computer, and the from that point on I wished I had done it with more traditional mediums, like collage or cut paper, but with the 4th of July holiday this week and commitments, I did not have time. Sigh....

Make Art That Sells - my thoughts at the end of Part A


All 5 of my assignments

This is going to be disorganized and rambly, but here we go:

I am SO GLAD I took this course. I needed a kick in the butt in regards to my art, my style, my technique, and this class has been a great start to getting me down a new path. I broke away from the computer, like I wanted to, and even created one assignment completely in traditional mediums (Week 4, Wall Art). I fell in love again with simply sketching, and sketching almost everyday. I got my ass kicked by color, and that is far from over. I learned a lot about 5 different industries, and what they each look for in artwork - and that was great, though it wasn't my main reason for taking this class, however in learning so much, and I also learned that I don't know a lot, and that was a great lesson in itself. 

I'm scared and sad the class is over - and I am really really looking forward to Part B. But I'm super glad that Part B isn't until October, because my brain is so full and exhausted from the very intense past 5 weeks, that I need a few months in between to digest, review, and keep creating (and I miss my friends and want to enjoy summer a bit).  I have visions in my mind of perhaps a couple directions I want my work to go in, and I'm really really eager to get started on them. 

I feel like I am at a crossroads in my career right now - and that the past year or so has been a battle - a battle to create a lot of art, even though some of it I wasn't loving, feeling discouraged and lost and envious and stressed and unsuccessful. Of feeling overwhelmed and tired and that everytime I put a pencil to paper it had to come out a masterpiece. And I'm a pretty smart girl I think - I know that those feelings and thoughts are ridiculous, and that I do have a talent, and that I'm putting all this pressure on myself which is completely unfounded. I have a few clients, and I love working for them. I had lost my joy in creating art, and I want to find it again. 

A very dear and smart friend of mine said to me once when I was going through a bad breakup years ago, that I need to be kind to myself. Her words really rang true for my battle-worn heart at the time, and still ring true today while I'm dealing with a battle-worn talent. So I'm going to be kind to myself by taking some time to find my joy again in my art, to figure out what that means, to explore new mediums and techniques, and to find some honest feedback and also love and support. It won't happen overnight, but I've always loved the process of creating art, so the next year or so should be really really good for me.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Vita, love this post! So authentic and real. I am very inspired with your beautiful work and I love how you stretched yourself with the traditional mediums. So happy for you that you took this class. Looking forward to watching you progress and take your work to new heights!

Unknown said...

Vita, GREAT post! I am with you about finding my joy again- I am worn out after MATS, intrigued, curious as to what I REALLY want to do- like you I used paint again for the first time in a LONG time- great course and even better getting to meet some other great artists!

Unknown said...

Oh Vita, I know that feeling all too well. Pressure, fear, and judgement can take away the joy. I felt the up and down of this throughout the course. I would love to have a talk with you about this.
I learn so much from observing the kids I teach. The students who become immersed in the process and totally lose themselves without judging, create the most beautiful work.

Jason B said...

This is great and inspirational. It's fantastic to challenge yourself to learn something new, no matter how awesome you already are! I've been looking to do something like this myself lately. Maybe an art class would be a great kick in the butt. Thanks for posting this, Vita!