An Adventure in water color: The teacher as student

I have not had any extensive art training. The most training and experience has been with my work with tangling and becoming a CZT. I have always been interested in art but did not think I had any skill in art.  I could doodle, as the margins of most of my notebooks from college could attest. I usually stuck with more geometric designs and use to jokingly say that if college did not work out maybe I could get a job designing wall paper.

One of the things that tangling provided me with, was an experience that allowed me to be creative in a non-threatening way. It helped me be less critical of things I did and to relax and enjoy what I was doing. I have experimented with different things since starting to tangle. Some remember that  while back I posted a water color that I started. I have not had much opportunity to take any classes on anything. Well that changed this past week. One of the local artists, that also teaches at the Gallery where I teach Zentangle® method, offered a class that I was available to take. I was a little apprehensive and waited until the last minute to commit, but I did attend.

It was an enjoyable experience but I also think that it will be helpful to me as I continue to teach classes. It reminded me of the anxiety, nerves when attempting to do something new that a lot of my students experience. One thing I remember thinking vividly is "Oh no, I have to draw something".  It gave me the opportunity to practice those things that I tell students to do like, breathe, don't be so critical, and take it one step at a time.

I was not able to finish the piece that I was working on so this will probably be a post that will continue with updates as I attempt to finish the piece. Besides not being very familiar with any other medium, one of the other things that was new was that we did not use brushes to apply the paint. We used water color blocks to apply the color and draw out the piece and then used a brush to spread it. I need to work a lot on this technique as I tended to not put down enough color and also tended to use too much water. But that is why you practice. You learn.

Here is the picture that we used as a prompt.

The teacher admitted that after doing it she used a photo shop app to add the stippling in the picture. She was just trying things and liked it enough that she left it. 

Here is what I have done so far.

I do not have any of the water color blocks so I will either be using a brush to add or blend some of the colors as I go along or I will use the Inktense water color pencils that I have. I have a small 12 pencil set. I actually did use some on these on this in class for some of the red.  If I decide to add the stippling, will probably use my Microns or an IdentiPen. I should add that on the one bloom I did a little highlighting with pastel chalk blocks. the teacher wanted to show how this could make come of the colors pop a little bit more,

Not sure when I will get a chance to get back to this but will post an update so stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting. If you made it all the way through this entire post, again thanks as it is much longer than most of my posts and it is on a subject I do not usually deal with. As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go tangle and create some art - using any medium.