Yesterday was the last class in the current after-school series for my Monday girls. We were wrapping up our 8-week, Wonder-themed artistic exploration with a special project. The girls were tasked with creating a 5×7 alcohol ink abstract on Yupo paper, with the intention of framing it when they got home. I spent a half a class the week before giving a very detailed tutorial with various techniques, tips, tricks, and showing class samples that I had created in advance. The girls practiced painting the ink, pouring the ink, and moving the ink. They LOVED it….
Fast forward to yesterday. I was ready. The girls were ready. They were buzzing with creative energy! After a little recap of the process, they collected their supplies and were off to the races.
The girls had so much fun adding color, watching the colors meld and mold and morph, blowing color around with a straw, and even removing some of the color and creating beautiful flow with the addition of isopropyl alcohol. Some made patterns with paper towels and toothpicks. As with anything…too much of a good thing can simply be too much of a good thing.
One of the girls created the GORGEOUS work of art shown above! There was such beautiful MOTION in her work! Each time I walked by, I would remind her that she should let it dry and not add anything else to it because it was going to all run together and get muddy. She simply had too much wet medium on the substrate to support any more layers. But, the lure of this incredibly freeing process kept calling to her and she couldn’t stop herself. She kept adding more colors, and when she didn’t like the result because it started to look boggy, she would add an excess of alcohol to try to take some of the color away, but her page ended up looking like a California hillside after a big rain storm: runny, muddy, out of control.
It is no surprise that she was unhappy and wanted to start over.
You see, in art, as in life, it is really important to know when enough is enough. It’s important to know the difference between vibrance and muck. And, it’s important to know when to put the brakes on a good thing. Fortunately, there are also no mistakes in art—only opportunities for learning. So, with some encouragement, my young artist went back to the drawing board (or Yupo paper, as it were) and applied her new knowledge to create something that brought a smile to her face and had pride welling up in her belly.
Things we learn in the studio on a regular basis:
- It is important to have a vision, yet be flexible with your desired outcome.
- It’s okay to step back from a project for a few minutes to see how a project takes shape before adding anything new.
- There is a fine line between flow and funk. With practice, we get to learn what that line is. It’s a great take-away for life, as well as art.
- There is always an opportunity to start over and apply what you have learned.
Make it a beautiful day, everyone. And let’s celebrate these young artists who I experience so much shared joy with each and every week!
Love,
Jenn
