Hot Cha Cha

I took a mixed media and acrylic painting ecourse this fall from Tracy Verdugo.  Tracy is a well-known artist and a fantastic teacher.  I was hesitant to take her class, as I was the only digital artist taking the class.  However, Tracy was open to the idea of a digital artist taking her class and was very supportive.  You can see Tracy’s work here.  Be sure to check out her ecourse starting in February here.

I had a lot of fun with these two paintings.  The second painting is actually the first painting.  I took the original painting and turned it and flipped it until it ended up like it is.

As I mentioned, I was a bit hesitant about the class since I was the only digital artist.  Many artists do not consider digital artists “real” artists.  I disagree, but am not going to get into that discussion now.

Painter, the app I use, is actually a huge multi-media store.  It has so many kinds of media.  It includes acrylics, oils, watercolors, pastels, crayons, pens, liquid inks, chalks and on and on.  Additionally, I can import photos of anything into Painter to add to my paintings.  It also works with paper texture and has patterns and other special effects.  It has taken me two years just to start to figure out how to get Painter to do basic painting.  I wanted to be exposed to some new approaches in painting and mixed media.  I definitely was in Tracy’s class.

In the class, we did a painting during the six weeks.  Additionally, there were several other projects each week to get our creative juices flowing.  I will be posting those later this month.

In the painting, we started out by dividing the canvas into squares.  Then in some of the squares we drew in objects or shapes with black paint.  Actually, Tracy advised us to use a dark grey rather than black, as it would not be so harsh.  Then with colored oil pastels we filled in a few more squares.  Then Tracy had people take acrylic ink and lay that over parts of the painting.  I used what are called flow maps in Painter and got a dripping effect from those.  I added them to my painting.  They have pretty much disappeared into the painting now.

There were several other steps during the six-week course.  At one point, Tracy had us take white and paint over most of the painting.  That made for a huge challenge to me.  But, I managed to work my way through it.  This part of the class was probably one of the best parts for me.  Usually, if I find that I don’t like the way a painting is going, I am in the habit of erasing or redoing the painting, rather than problem solving my way through the painting.

But in this class, I just kept moving forward with my painting, problem solving and pushing my creativity.

During this class, I made a decision to quit listening to that voice in my head that thinks I can’t paint.  I have discovered that most artists have “that woman” in their heads.  I have put her on a time out.  I am no longer engaging with her.  That just seems to make her stronger.  So, now, every time she shows up, I quietly and lovingly put her back on her time out.  It seems to be working.  She is becoming less and less strong.  I also told myself that if I was going to carry on with this high drama of wailing about what a bad artist I am, that I couldn’t paint anymore.  I decided I either enjoy this ALL the time and stay happy, or I will quit creating.

This class triggered a lot of new ideas to apply in my future paintings.  I’m really glad I took the class and highly recommend it.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy 2015.  I look forward to sharing more of my creative journey with all of you in this coming year.