Monday, November 10, 2014

Creativity weekend with Nita Leland

Fly Away, 11 x 14" mixed media collage
This past weekend I spent three days with Neta Leland, author of many creativity and art technique books from F&W Publishing (http://www.nitaleland.com/) and really wonderful water media artist.

This was her "Creativiy" workshop that included playing with mono prints and collage techniques as well as sketchbook execises about design & creativity.  8 women gathered at the Evendale Cultural Arts Center in Cincinnati to share our ideas and art supplies.  It was fun.  I schlepped half my studio to the workshop. In hindsight I could have taken far less with me but I was happy to have all the choices.  In my experience collage taps the intuition and it helps to have lots of stuff.

It was fun to work with acrylics again.  I had accumulated a lot of collage supplies over the years. The above piece "Fly Away" was the result.


Lovely chaos all over the table. Notice the hot pink area 
that got toned down in the final piece.

I brought some rubber stamps into play


I added the red elements on the lower left to lead you into the piece 
and to balance the stuff on the lower right.

Abstact art is very different from my usual landscapes and pet portraits. Its fun to juice things up every now and again. Of course, getting it all loade back in the car and unloaded back at the studio was a bit of a challenge...

Remember, if you are considering commisioning a pet portrait for Holiday giving you need to let me know asap.  Calendars also make a terrific gift. (Hint-hint!) See ordering links to the right.

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are
Love what you have
Do what you can