Back in August I was packing to go on a family vacation - five days in Mexico by the sea. I was thrilled at the thought of getting away for a few days. But ScrapArtist was closing. What was I going to do to keep my creative brain occupied. The day before we were due to leave for Mexico I was browsing the web when I came across Suzi Blu's site and a new class starting up - La Sierena. It was to be a four month mixed media affair creating mermeaids. It appealed to me immediately and I signed up on the spot. As much as I love digi art I had been wanting to get my hands dirty with physical paint for some time but with mixed media being such a big subject I didn't know where to begin. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to give it a try, but did I have it in me? What if I couldn't do it? What if I made mistakes? This had always stopped me in the past. As soon as I make a mistake I would abandon the piece or throw it away. All during the vacation my head was filled with mermaid thoughts and once I got home I was keen to start. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this.
Through a series of videos and pdf handouts Suzi went through the basics of drawing a face, creating a layered background and briefly touched on colour theory. But don't let colour theory scare you away. It's delivered with Suzi's unique spin and it was one of the most enjoyable lessons mostly because it all started to make sense. Suzi also has a few other tricks up her sleeve to help you get your drawing onto the canvas. The word mistake doesn't seem to come into Suzi's vocabulary - it's all art. In theory I like this idea. I love other people's mistakes in art, but could I live with my own mistakes? Could I live with wonky eyes, smudge paint and wonky pencil lines?
Six weeks after signing up for the class I have three finished paintings. I'm pretty pleased with them. Not because they are fine examples of art. They were mostly a learning experience, such as an acrylic wash isn't a good substitute for distressing ink and covering a picture with wax ins't as easy as Suzi makes it look. BUT they are all my own work and they are completed - warts and all.
It's not a great photo but as you can probably tell I'm eager to share. I'll try and take a better photo at the weekend.
Thank you for looking! :-)
