Craft Napa Day 1

Sue's class on Thursday was with Carrie Bloomston, artist, fabric designer, and author of "The Little Spark 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity".  The class was called Playing with Art History - Creative Collage.  We started off the day with an exercise to spark our creativity. We had a pile of "trash" (brown paper and magazine shapes) and had to illustrate a word we were given at random. We had a limited time for this activity (5-6 minutes), so we had to act & not spend much time contemplating. It was a good way to "get out of your head" and just create. Sue's word was "abstract" - can you find the picture?  We also discussed principles of design with examples shown in the paintings of famous artists. A lesson in gesture drawing rounded out the morning.

In the afternoon we worked on collages inspired by something we brought, which could have been fabrics, paper, ephemera, a quote or the work of a favorite artist. Some of us worked on paper while others worked on artist canvas. 

Sue had a selection of fabrics she worked with, adding tissue paper, some of Carrie's fabrics, and wooden block prints. The class results overall were creative and varied. It was fun to see what and how everyone created from their inspiration. Everything is held together with matte medium.  Sue's finished piece is on the upper right.