instant art show #3
brush ink compositions
Welcome to the third Instant Art Show! The creation of the pieces in this week’s show are based on a combination of two art concepts that I’m very passionate about. One is ink painting, and the other is composition. This week’s Instant Art Show is based on an exercise I designed for myself to isolate and explore these two concepts by combining some loose and spontaneous brushwork with a more deliberate process of design. It’s an exercise that anyone could do and produce a series of lovely and unique ink pieces, and is demonstrated in this week’s video:
I had a wonderful time filming this week’s segment, and was pleased to have my talented videographer, Aurora Quinn, appearing with me in the video to creating some compositions. The artwork I created for this week’s show can be seen below, and will also be part of an in-person show that I’ll be having at Enclave Studios in Ashland on Friday, September 29, 5-8 pm. The event will feature work from both the third and the fourth Instant Art Show. I’d love to see you there!
Instant art show #3 postmortem report
And here’s the week in review in the form of the Postmortem Report! Read on to find out what I learned, what went well, and what was challenging this week:
what I learned
The objective for this week’s show was facing the challenge of distilling a complicated idea into something that communicates well. I really loved the concept behind this week’s topic, with its combination of ink work and composition; but while the process seemed to make intuitive sense, I quickly realized how complicated it sounded once I began trying to explain it. It’s been frustrating for me to realize how often ideas that seem coherent inside my head are actually difficult to communicate in a clear way. It’s not until I try to share them that I can see where the gaps and inconsistencies are. But the payoff for this frustration is that I’m developing ways of improving my ideas by examining them in more objective ways; and I really like the idea that this is a skill that can be learned and refined, rather than being a skill that you’re either born with or you’re not. Whether I’m writing the ideas down so I can read them, recording them so that I can listen back, or evaluating a video I’m filming, it feels like a real gift to have all these opportunities to improve my thinking and my communication.
I find that ideas for art can sometimes be very similar. When I first hatch an idea for an art project, it can be incredibly captivating to turn the idea over and over in my mind and consider all the intoxicating possibilities; I love this stage because the idea is still vague enough be ideal and perfect and wonderful, and anything is possible in my imagination. And so the idea remains suspended there in this hazy but ideal state until I start to work on it in real life, where it gets messy and weird and takes all kinds of unexpected turns as I figure out all the things I didn’t know before. But the payoff of sacrificing a vaguely perfect idea is always worth it when I find myself having the hands-on experience of being knee-deep in creating something messy and weird and imperfect, and then having a tangible real-life result at the end. Otherwise the idea stays sadly trapped in my head and no art is actually made. Real life is better!
what went well
There were lots of really fun ideas in this show, and demonstrating them for the video was a blast! I liked how this week’s video turned out, because there are lots of inherently beautiful things about the tools that are used for ink painting that were captured in the imagery; and I feel like the concept for the show was something I felt good about sharing after having worked through the ideas on my own.
what was challenging
One of the challenges this week was that I wanted to make an additional video about the materials I’m using, but it turned out that I didn’t have enough clarity around how I wanted to talk about it. Discussing materials is another one of those things that seems very clear in my head because I’ve spent so much hands-on time with all the papers and inks and brushes, but developing clear communication without having it be overwhelming is a bit trickier than I thought it would be. I’m hoping to develop more clarity on this front as well, because materials are such a fun thing to talk about with other creatives, so it’s yet another skill I’ve added to my bucket list!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the ideas in this week’s Postmortem Report! I feel really fortunate to be able to share my ideas with you. If you have ideas or experiences to share on these topics, please feel free to email me through my website. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll see you next week!