The second assignment went back to the simple little compositions that we made at home before class began. We were allowed to use up to three of them, but I chose to just use one. Again, we were to focus on “flat” and “glowing” colors. Nancy wanted the figure to be very glowing and the background to be very flat. After our last realization of how much colors can change, I decided to simplify things by picking a group of closely related brights, and a group of closely related darks. The other part of the assignment was to vary the amount of space our figure took up. This idea is somewhat similar to what I did with my Push-up #1, so I was a bit more comfortable with this assignment.
First I played with the idea of using bright greens, but in the end I turned to my hot pinks. It was fun to play with such bright colors during those last couple of days.
We did a lot more talking as a group in this class than in the beginner workshops. One truly wonderful part that I always enjoy is the show-and-tell portion where everyone shares what they’ve been working on. I am simply in awe of some of the wonderful works of art that people shared. Somehow I didn’t hear that people were signing up to share and I ended up being the very last one. By then I was a nervous wreck! While I can speak relatively calmly at a quilt guild, somehow in this environment I was very unsure of myself. The stress alone puts me on the verge of tears. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to share my five “Push-ups.” I was very relieved when Nancy actually liked some of them. She picked out three of the five and encouraged me to focus on those as a three different series. So, you’ll be seeing more of those push-ups in the future.
As much as I enjoy taking the workshops, I love being home in my own studio so much more. Now I just have to put all this stuff away and reorganize my studio so I can get back to work.