Art Challenge
This art challenge did not limit what type of art as it could be videography, music, poetry etc.
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I chose art. My theme was coastal inspired, on mixed media paper, format of the paper square (I like squares!) and material mixed media/anything I chose to use that I had already. I kept the materials loose but as the challenge progressed got a clearer idea of what media I liked using best. I am yet to give away the media I will not be using again, but it is on the to do list as with cleaning my craft room.
The first six weeks shown above from top left to bottom right: African Daisies, Birds, clouds, dunes, estuary, and Fifeshire rock.
The African daisies was created using mainly using oil pastels. I like how it turned out as I tried a bokeh technique for the background to provide detail, the purple part of the flowers (sorry I am not up with anatomy and correct terminology here) was a marker pen. I did not like using oil pastels for the texture and messy-ness of it.
Birds was created using cheap gouache paint and coloured pencils. The gouache had more of a watercolour effect, which I don’t mind. The birds are a mix of gouache and colour pencils.
Clouds was created with the cheap gouache and remanicient of my acrylic landscapes. Coloured pencils were used for detail in the foreground.
Dunes was largely in coloured pencils with the sea in gouache. I do not like this artwork, but as part of the process “bad” art is encouraged as it is a learning process, you need to create “bad” art to produce “good” art and this good and bad is rather arbitrary anyways.
Estuary mixed acrylic paint with oil pastels. Another artwork that is so-so.
Fifieshire rock is a rock that sticks out of the harbour and has seen ships wrecked on it. The rock was named after one of those ships. Now-a- days there is another more suitable passage, which is a later artwork I created as part of this challenge. This artwork is created using gouache and pen.
Top left to bottom right: Grasses, heron, islands, jellyfish, kinetic energy, lighthouse.
Grasses was created using coloured pencils, heron was created using gouache, islands created using watercolour pencils (this was created not long after moving into a new house). Jellyfish was a whim with acrylic paint (my son was also painting his own picture- speed was necessary). Kinetic energy was an abstract image that used alcohol markers and washi tape. Lighthouse turned out wonky but was created using acrylic paint.
Lighthouse was the turning point of this challenge as I intended to start creating a more consistent style.
Top left to bottom right: mudflats, nikau palm, ocean, port, quay, and rocky shores.
Mudflats is a bit of a misnomer as it is actually sandflats, but I was brought up calling them mudflats. I created this abstract landscape using oil pastels.
Nikau Palms where created using alcohol markers. For ocean I used gouache and for Port I used coloured pencil.
Quay is where I started using better quality gouache and have developed a style I like. Bright, colourful with an area for large flat brushstrokes.
Rocky shores is also in gouache. Quay and rocky shores is where I decided I wanted to have all the remaining art in gouache. I mostly stuck to that bar two artworks.
From top left to bottom right: sheds (boat), the cut, urbanisation, villages, waterfront, xerophyte (plant that can withstand dry conditions).
Boat sheds and waterfront- gouache and I am really happy with these artworks. The cut is the new passage for ships to go through, avoiding shallow water and rocks. I like this artwork, however, it is reminincent to my acrylic landscapes and feel like it does not fit the style I was going for.
Urbanisation is unfinished and in gouache- I redrew this on iPad in the procreate app. At this point of the challenge, I was getting tired so works where variable in quality. I was not happy with villages which I used watercolour pencils. Xerophytes (I had to google this) is to do with the grasses, also in gouache and another so-so artwork.
Left to right: Yacht and Zones.
The last two artworks are yacht and zones. Yacht is in gouache paint and unfinished. I am not too happy with this artwork either. The last one is another abstract washi tape, gouache, and ink markers which marks out the coastal zones.
I feel the work produced in this challenge was very mixed and I somewhat treated the challenge as an exploration rather than trying to have every single work be perfect. Granted the challenge requires you to produce one artwork a week and even if that is do-able, things like illness, moving house, work and family life can impact how much time per week you spend on each piece. I definitely learned that I am best completing an artwork in a couple of days and more quickly to be happy with the outcome. Some of the work turned out really poor and this was often due to having too many commitments and health reasons.
I think art challenges can be beneficial to grow your art practice, whether you intend to use the artworks as part of a sketchbook practice or for more finished pieces, it can provide insights to your art style and practice and what works and does not work for you.