Squam Art Workshops Day 1: Layered Lines

l'air gamine

images are transfers from 1950s Chatelaine magazine and clip art

Workshop: Layered Lines

Teacher: Diana Fayt

Key materials: graphite and charcoal pencils, oil pastels, heavy weight drawing paper, chalk pastel for image transfers, brushes and Turpenoid Natural for blending the oil pastel colours, gouache for finishing touches

goddess

line art is an image transfer from my 2005 mandala series

What I learned: how to paint with oil pastels - they were a new medium for me; how to transfer an image from one piece of paper to another using a chalk pastel and a pen (soooo easy!); how to let go of the final outcome and focus on practice & learning how to work with the materials; to persevere

I was unsure of my ability to produce anything I liked in this class since my imagination and drawing skills weren't quite sharpened, but thanks to an easy-peasy image transfer process Diana taught us I managed to come up with something of which I'm proud. Diana also taught us to not be afraid to colour over lines and that not everything has to be realistic. Hair can be blue. Really.