Making Art a Practice Online Class with Cat Bennett via www.carlasonheim.com Week 1 Greetings at the Facebook Class Group Hi from Boston, everyone! Great to see everyone introducing themselves here! Carla is posting the first class video at 5 past midnight Seattle time. I'll be sleeping but I'll see you all tomorrow. It's going to be fun and interesting too. Thanks so much for being here and joining this adventure! Day 1 Good morning! So great to meet everyone and to see the work that people are already posting! The video didn't make this clear but I'd like to suggest that today we just work in one color and see what happens. It's a bit out of our comfort zone sometimes and may seem a bit dull but when we allow ourselves to slow down and sink into some limitations, things will begin to happen. Try working this way for 15 to 20 minutes. And as Mary pointed out below, we can try not to judge what we do but just "see". Notice what seems interesting or if you want to explore different kinds of lines robust, lyrical, delicate, sharp edges, soft circles etc. We don't need to think too much. Once we get going we'll slip into our imaginative spatial arty minds. It can help to put some music on. One thing will lead to another! Tomorrow we'll work with the brush and paint again adding more colors. (I know the video said to do 5 crayon drawings a day but let's start those on THURSDAY and carry through the weekend if we like.) Today let's focus on one color today and see how our drawings evolve, one after the other. I find they change after doing a few. I'm heading to the studio now and will share what I come up with a little later. Every day we do this will be different! Happy drawing!! and later Sitting down to do some abstract drawing with the brush. Just one color today! The idea is to just start and keep going until you want to stop. See what happens. Absolutely no right or wrong just exploring!
Day 2 As we're all on different time zones (and I'm on east coast US time) will post any special instructions for the next day the evening before. First, what a wonderful group we have here! And thanks to everyone who posted drawings today. It was great to see them and see how different they all are. So many great approaches to the same instructions! Today we'll also draw with paint and brush but this time adding a second color or many colors! This should just take a half hour or so. Practicing like this gives us a chance to just explore in an open-minded way. It also gives our hand and eye good practice. It can be like a meditation. Here's a wonderful quote from Kurt Vonnegut: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or how badly, not to get money or fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what s inside you, to make your soul grow. See you soon! Day 3 Hi, everybody! I am loving seeing what everyone is doing and hearing people's thoughts here! Thanks so much for sharing! It's so great to see everyone's beautiful life energy in the drawings. And also how each of our hands are distinctive. We really get to see new things when we let go of end results and just see what happens. We can go back to this kind of exercise any time we want. It really does give us facility with brush and paint. When we do a lot of these kinds of drawings we might also see that a kind of coherence or order starts to emerge. Today we move to simply drawing in the same free form way with crayons, pastels, colored pencils etc. This kind of drawing is quicker as we don't need to set anything
up. It changes what happens too. Maybe we get wilder. Maybe quieter. Maybe it all looks different. Let's see! (And always remember it's all good!) Day 4 Well, what an exciting week this has been, at least for me! It's been great to see everyone's work. And don't worry if you haven't posted anything yet. Feel free to dive in at any time! I think we can all see how individual everyone's hand is the gift of working in a group like this. Also, I hope we can see that working without any fixed goal or result helps us discover so much. We get to be messy or awkward or try weird colors. Make straight lines or wavy ones. Smudge colors or mix them up. We can learn so much and so quickly by just experimenting. So, to carry on, I believe in repetition in doing more of the same until things start to change. Looking and seeing what's there. What do we love? Then do more and change it up a bit. We can use other colors or other drawing tools. We can try something someone else has done here. Or we can refine something we've already done. Gradually we find our own groove with this. Today let's do 5+ more. and later Hello, everybody! It's been a real pleasure to work together this week splashing around as we have. We can always come back to it to free ourselves up. The more we do, the bolder and more assured we get! There are also some great conversations here about the inner critic and just forging ahead! Here's to forging ahead! I'll be active on the page here Monday to Friday. You're most welcome to carry on drawing and posting here over the weekends if you like or you can just put your feet up! I have to go teach in an actual classroom tomorrow! On Monday, we have one more day working in this abstract way. On Sunday night, I'll post again and give a little direction to fine tune our approach!
Meanwhile, thanks so much for being such a fantastically supportive and vibrant group! I want to leave you with this great quote from Leonard Cohen "Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, that's how the light gets in. Sunday evening: Instructions for Monday! Hello! Hope you are all well and have had a good weekend! It's been beautiful here this weekend in Boston as the colors change and the air gets a little nippy! Tomorrow (Monday) is the end of the first week. Everyone has done an amazing job of exploring making marks! It s a great exercise to loosen up, strengthen our hand and eye, and try things out! And to have fun! As the week has progressed, the drawings have too! Bravo! It s been great too the conversations that have sprung up about perfectionism and the inner critic. Thanks so much for all your thoughts. So interesting and helpful. Last night my husband and I went to see Patti Smith read from her new memoir M Train. She s really funny, it turns out. A member of the audience asked about creative process. He d trained in one thing yet felt a strong urge to do something else. Patti said to go for what calls to him. She said she has no training in anything but she loves to work. She said it would be a big adventure if he didn t know what he was doing. I loved that! For Monday, if you d like, make two simple colored shapes and add a simple pencil drawing on top. The pencil drawing can be abstract or representational. Let s bring the spirit of adventure into all we do! I know some people here are very busy and things happen in life. Don t worry. Join in as you can or work along at home. On Tuesday, there s a new video and we begin drawing from life! See you tomorrow! MONDAY! I've had a great time this morning looking at everyone's work! It's amazing to see how unique everyone's approach is and also to see how the work develops as we do more.
I loved reading this from Shena Meadowcraft: "It occurred to me this week that we so often have the expectation of being good at something without putting in the practice... embracing the doing now!" So true! Thanks, Shena! Some of us are trying out things we don't necessarily do often or are very comfortable with and making discoveries! Bravo!!! Tati Vice asked what's the difference between this kind of exploration and doodling. Well, I'm not sure I have a good answer because it might just be semantics. But I think what I do when I'm on the phone or watching TV might be doodling. A bit mindless and not much looking and seeing. With this kind of exploration, I tend to go a bit deeper. Once I get going something seems to happen and I begin to develop the work a bit without thinking too much. Or I might consciously try things out like what happens if I use this brush, or mix these colors, or make this kind of line, or get really dark or really soft, or put the two together? Well, you get the idea! Thanks, Tati! Finally, I think I've scrolled down to see everyone's work! Thanks so much for posting. I'd like to say something about my very spontaneous comments. Sometimes I say great, vivid colors! Or wonderful wavy lines! Or whatever I immediately respond to! Others of you are also making great, supportive and insightful comments. But I don't want any of us to attach to the comments. Whatever we do one day, we'll surely do even more as we go along. And because we used vivid colors one day doesn't mean we need to the next or maybe we will! We can do whatever we feel like!! We're here to work from the inside out! And, finally, finally, Denneen Peterson asked what we should do with all these drawings and sketchbooks! Thanks for that great question. Well, of course, it's up to every person. I keep some sketchbooks if I find interesting things in them that spark ideas or that I simply like and enjoy. We could also use some of the drawings in collage work if we do that kind of work. But I also let go of a lot of old sketchbooks and drawings. I like to let go of things. That's just me though. The real point of all our work here is to grow our skills and ideas and energy! That we never let go of! OK. Will check back in later and add a few words tonight in preparation for beginning something entirely different tomorrow! Have a good Monday! Cat