wayfaringwordhack | Entries tagged with artful prompting challenge

(2 April 2024)

This has been such a busy season for my family. I feel like we are in GO mode all the time. I have been creating so much, but because it is more illustrative, it just doesn't feel very apropos to this community. However, I will keep posting our art prompt adventure. I do hope to paint soon, too, but I am not putting any pressure on myself.

Our prompts this time around were: Spring and Agamographs! I only recently learned what agamographs were and therefore had no experience making them. Enter YouTube. Since we had "spring" as our other prompt, none of us went with the more graphic style that seems to work well with this type of art. I learned quite a few do's and don'ts in this process, such as: Small details are pointless because they will be lost "in transition."

It would have been better to do videos of our artworks, but I don't have that kind of patience or bandwidth. Hope the photos will at least give an inkling of the final products. 😄

First is a photo of the completed artworks before cutting them up, along with the first construction steps (sadly, I forget to photograph everyone else's before they cut and pasted them. As I said, this was a learning process):

I did mine in acrylic with some colored pencil for details.

Daughter's (watercolor):

With hers, we learned the folly of using too-thin paper for the base layer.😣

Middle child's (marker):

Youngest child's (marker, soft pastel, colored pencil):

Have you ever tried an agamograph?

(16 March 2024)

This "week's" challenge was Birds! (Weeks in quotation marks because we are doing a "painting birds" class together as a family and it is taking us longer to find days when everyone can paint and learn together. We still have one more segment, but we have finished the bulk of the lessons now.)

Enjoy a sampling of family fun exploring feathered friends.

Lots of playing with mixed media happening.😊 One of the most freeing things about this process is learning that I do not have to be married to a decision I make and can always paint over it and try something else.

For example, I painted a bird out of my composition because I wasn't happy with it. I don't like the resulting colors on the background. And that is OK because I can either move on or paint over the background again and then draw or paint another bird.

My daughter is loving the theme and even got bold enough to paint in a background!

(March 5, 2024)

Artful Prompting, 6

#inspiration #process #creativity #artist #Resources

This past week's prompt was Self Portraits, and thanks to Sandi Hester and her self-portrait tips video, I wasn't even apprehensive about doing it. I set out NOT caring about a likeness, just painting colors and shapes, and it was great fun. And they don't look anything like me. Except I do wear glasses and usually have my hair in a side braid.🤓😜

These are in order from left to right. The first one was done on super-cheap sketch paper. You can even see around my "artistically" applied gesso coating that the paper actually has a purplish cast. Anyhow. I began this with a blind-contour sketch of myself, and oh how I wish I had photographed it. It was charmingly hilarious as most blind-contour drawings are. I used acrylics, which I am not used to, so many skin areas are chalkier than I would have liked. I had a sunburn from skiing--silly me forgot the sunscreen--so those red splotches are pretty true to life. And I actually love the look of the red blobs of color.

I painted the second one while using the first one as a reference without trying to copy it. It was also done with acrylics but on watercolor paper. In fact, I re-used a painting of my husband's which was painted in response to our 4th prompt (the one I didn't share. He begged me to recycle his paper, so there you have it). I was in a hurry--needed to take the kids to music--and so I really rushed it, not correcting wonky head, etc., and I think I will go back and retouch it. Not to get a likeness or pretty picture but because it was fun.

The third one was done in a cheap sketchpad, beginning with a "head shape" laid down in Jackson's Watercolor Brush Pens (light brown and red). I used some Faber Castell Watercolor Pencils to get more shapes and then some gouache to smooth out the patchiest places. Like Sandi, I tried to hold my brushes and pencils very loosely and "awkwardly," in the interest of not being precise and trying to get some fun quirks. I will definitely be revisiting this prompt.

Husband and Daughter both did just one self-portrait in paint:

Each of the boys did two, one version in colored pencil and the other in acrylic when I insisted they use paint, too.😄

I think the green nose is to spite me🤣 when I told him to try using some different colors because I couldn't see his "paint" nose and mouth, only the pencil lines beneath.🤪

(posted 26 Feb)

For anyone keeping count, you will know that I didn't post our 4th prompt. We all did it, but none of us felt very inspired to share it. That happens. This past week, our prompts were Etel Adnan (a Lebanese American artist, poet, essayist) and China. None of my family felt very motivated by this one, either. LOL

Etel mostly painted abstract landscapes in flat color planes, so I got some photos of Chinese landscapes and did a dozen or so thumbnail sketches with color pencils* to decide on my layout. I tried to keep my colors in line with what I think she might have used but did not base mine off a specific palette of hers. She mostly (exclusively? I dunno) used a palette knife, but I couldn't find my smaller one and used a brush in some places.

This is not a style I have a particular affinity for, but I admit to not being displeased with the final result. (The taller mountain in the right is actually more purple, but as usual, the photo did not want to play nice.)

___________

*Not the best medium choice because one cannot get the same effect as with paint; and so it was hard to judge colors, etc. I wanted to go with a different palette, but my husband said he liked this particular combo and thought I should go with it.

13 February 2024

Our third foray into art prompts resulted in "Elder Son" and "Utensils." Oooookay. How odd to have gotten two family members in a row. So, some of us chose to draw utensils and some chose to draw with utensils.

This one is from Elder Son who did NOT have to draw himself (I just love the earrings):

Daughter's take on her brother with utensils. Elder Son must be hungry:

Husband's (he used: a skewer, a bottle cork, a pastry brush, a fork, a sponge, and his fingers):

I tried a couple, the first (blue background) was done with a pastry brush, sponge, gloved fingers, and a bamboo skewer. The second was done with a sponge and a plastic fork:

The likeness is not there, but hey, one can't be hard on oneself when painting with a plastic fork.🤣 And that made this a very liberating experience. However, my boy has the most beautiful mouth, and I really hated that I couldn't capture it.

While watching YouTube videos about mark-making, I came across an artist, Sandi Hester, who is really fun and whose work I will watch more as I delve into the illustrative side of what I want to do. The kids are also enjoying her, and Daughter's blue outline came about from a video of Sandi's. We have done many faces since watching that.

(These posts are pretty much copy-pasted from the art forum where I first wrote them)

29 Jan 2024
Two Fridays have come and gone since my last posting about my family's art prompt adventure. It isn't because we haven't been doing it, but because we bit off more than we could chew! The kids drew three prompts: The name of my youngest, one of their uncles, and Claude Monet!

So, two portraits (should you chose to interpret the prompt that way, and most did/do) and the style of one of the fathers of Impressionism. Whom, it turns out, my children did not know much about--no worries, we'll learn like we did with Georgia O'Keeffe--but they didn't even have a good grasp about what Impressionism is. They were discouraged and unhappy with any results they were getting, and this was when I realized just how much art baggage and assorted culture I have picked up over the years. I incorrectly assumed that with a little "YouTube refresher" everyone could be on the same artistic page I was.

So we voted, midweek, to drop Tonton (endearing term for "uncle" in French) from the challenge. That still didn't get us closer to knowing how to approach Impressionism, particularly Monet's style, who, unhelpfully to us, did *not* paint a lot of portraits.

Another vote decided we would extend this challenge for two weeks, and I dug into some fun activities with the kids, geared to get them to loosen up, "dab" the paint, and be conscious of values. That culminated in little copies of Claude Monet's painting "San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk."

(Monet did this in oils and we worked in watercolor, making it harder to get his "blended dabbing;" but watercolor is definitely faster and easier to work with/clean up after with kiddos!)

They started to have more fun, which is the point of it all, but there are still pockets of resistance in my seven-year-old.🤪

On Friday, I will have portraits or "figures in a landscape" to show for those who are willing to have me share their work.😝

I have learned:

- additional things about Impressionism;

- some of the limits of the prompt challenge; but

- how to roll with changes to accommodate the goals of having fun with learning and creativity. The beauty of our learning style is that we are on no one else's timetable but our own. We can slow down or speed ahead as we want.

How did you creatively play this week? Learn anything you'd like to share or make anything you would like to post?
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(Follow-up posted 13 Feb)

I promised follow up on the Monet inspired paintings of my youngest son. I will share mine and then what my youngest son did. Because "self-portrait" is also an upcoming prompt, each person is not obliged to draw/paint themselves when their individual name is picked. So, Youngest Son, not too thrilled by Monet, chose to be inspired by George Meouchy, a Lebanese artist, whose exhibit we visited recently.

Arches Oil Paper, 23x31cm (9x12in)

This was immensely challenging, and I almost threw in the towel multiple times. I painted him a tad thicker than he really is, and trying to get proportions and a believable figure showed me just how much I need to do more work with anatomy. It is frightening and amazing how the smallest of brushstrokes can totally alter something.

And Youngest Son's George Meouchy-inspired rhino, a whopping 50X60cm (20x24) canvas panel, acrylics:

I love how brave he was in going big. Momma needs to take some lessons!

I thought I would share a new creative challenge my family and I are undertaking this year. Who knows if it might spark some ideas for anyone in need of such creative prompts.

The kids and I filled a tin with slips of paper inscribed with a hodgepodge of words (seasons, places, noodles <--7 year-old's contribution; he's so excited for it to come up in the rota), including artists, art movements, and techniques. Each Friday, we draw our prompts from the box (two to three) and then have a week to produce art based on them. We will start off Friday night with exploring the words and watching documentaries about the artists/techniques, and so. Even my husband is doing it with us.

The words for our first week (which we are doing now) are: Collage, Cyanotype, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The weather has been very non-conducive to cyanotype creation, but thankfully, we had lots of attempts from last year that we could use, especially useful given the "collage" aspect of the challenge.

I came up this challenge for multiple reasons:

1) I want to explore different ways of thinking, seeing, and doing, especially with an aim toward loosening myself up for children's book illustration;

2) I want to create with my kids and continue pushing them to stay in touch with their creatively fun kid nature, which is not always easy to do as many an adult can attest. And sadly, I think they might be picking up on my critical self-talk and discontent;

3) I find art a fabulous way to learn about the world, present and past, which ties into our wholistic approach to education. My kids and I have already had discussions about history (Dustbowl and Great Depression), geography, Native American spiritual beliefs, language for self-expression, moral issues (Georgia O'Keeffe's life--or commentary on her art--is not considered suitable for kiddos as many documentaries made me understand with the various tags of "kid-friendly"😜).

Our rules are: Have fun, Don't whine or complain, Creatively follow the prompts, Be encouragers.

My flower and the "feathers" (prints of Lebanese cedar needles) fulfill the cyanotype criteria, and watercolor experiments make up the other pieces. I didn't use a reference for the skull; just made something up.

My boys (yes, they have long hair) were inspired by O'Keeffe's lesser-known depictions of kachina dolls, and my daughter went for the floral take:

My husband is at work, so I can't ask his permission to post his.😉.

My kids, especially my daughter, has a strong aversion to abstract art, so tomorrow, I hope to do an activity that invites them out of their comfort zone to try it, even if they don't end up loving it. I think O'Keeffe's watercolors will be just the thing for inspiration.

ETA: art by Ti'Loup(left) and Farmer Boy(right):