Nurturing a creative voice

I'm not sure if I've said this here before but one of my deeply held beliefs is that everyone is creative in some way.   I love watching people discover who they are through the visual arts.  It's amazing to me that everyone's skills become evident the first moment they touch the paper with a brush, a pencil or even a stylus.

Me doing a demo for the Thousand Oaks Art Association

I had my Tuesday morning class with an enthusiastic group of new watercolorists.  I'm proud of their work and if they give me permission later I'll post some photos.    The first day we had class I went over the basic materials and the color wheel and had them do a few exercises to get familiar with the palette I have them using.  Then I had them paint something on their own.   I think they are romantic colorists.  All of them chose sunsets.  They did quite well and it was interesting to see their skills.  One is very good at drawing, another has a great sense of design and yet another is a natural colorist.  My job now is to help them recognize what they're good at and support their development.

Today one of my students brought a very interesting article from the LA Times to share.  Apparently David Hockney is using an app on his iphone and ipad to do new paintings.  He's already talking with one of the LA museums about an installation style exhibition using projections of his current work.  I love it!  Talk about someone filled with life.  It makes me want to add ipad painting to the list of mediums I use.

New technological innovations have always had a huge impact on how we create art.  With the information age firmly established and sophisticated tools easily available many of us can try our hand at this.

Here's the Hockney link.  Enjoy.

  http://senzala-senzala.blogspot.com/2011/01/david-hockneys-ipad-and-iphone-art.html

I think this is the brushes connection:  http://www.brushesapp.com/