Monday, September 15, 2008

Some observations on following the crowd

I have been working on these journal pages from Sarah Whitmore's blog Caspiana. I've noticed several things.

1. Is that they took forever to do.
2. I felt a little constrained following the rules.
3. I really didn't follow the rules.
4. I learned something in the process.














By this I mean I had a hard time finding all the things for the squares page, I finally just chose my own things. I didn't do the background in two colors either. I guess that I ended up spending so much time trying to get it right just like she showed that I lost something. I think that the next time I am intrigued by some Art I see where a group is doing the same thing I need to just take the idea and not worry about what others have done. Perhaps if I had thought oh cut out 2" pieces from a magazine of small images it would have been easier.













This page is on your house and a neighborhood. Of course it is not supposed to actually look like your house. Although it took a long time I really like working on this piece. It was visually satisfying and I ended up using lots of different materials.


















This page uses the silhouette technique and a lot of random stuff. I had learned this previously from Misty. This is a fun technique but I found all the random stuff was just filling space and it didn't feel like a good page to me.

All in all this experience has made me look at what kind of pages I do and what makes me comfortable and what does not. Its all a growth experience. I am not sure how this will change what I do in the future but it has made me look at things differently. I think that is what Art is all about, you take a look at your world, express how you see it and sometimes you change and then end up looking at your world differently and you then express it again and the cycle begins again.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well put, Kate.
I like the look of the house pages, btw.

Sharon Tomlinson said...

Hi Kate, I like what you did with your journal. I was following along but didn't do one. The neat thing is that one always learns something from each project.
Thank you for your well wishes. I think I am on the mend but without the energy I wish for.

gma said...

Kate...I did these pages too. Since it's my soul journal I didn't necessarily follow the rules either...but she had some awesome things to try which was great.

Olivia said...

Kate, I love looking at your art, how freely and easily you share it. I can see how much you are growing as an artist. I'm learning that I really need to take risks and venture out rather than stay stuck in fear...Peace, O

paris parfait said...

Wonderful art! As for following the rules, I think it's sometimes better to follow one's instincts.

Julie said...

Oh, my gosh, Kate! When I saw your first photo I thought it was my collage. Honest to gosh. I did one really similar for Lila (Indigo Pear's) book in our round robin altered book. I will send you an email with attachment and you will see what I mean. I enjoyed doing mine. I saw something in a magazine a long time ago - just long enough to leave me a vague memory of how it looked like.

Leah said...

that's a great page, kate! love silhouette.