Abstract Tile Creativity Workout

This is one of the Creativity Workouts from my book, Artist Within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit.

The instructions are an excerpt from my  book.

Step One: Make your mark on all different surfaces with all different mediums.

Supplies

  • Heavier paper, watercolor paper, brown grocery bags, cereal boxes are all ideal. Newspaper can be great too.
  • Oil and soft pastels.
  • Watercolor and acrylic paints.
  • White glue or any craft glue.
  • Water and brushes.
  • Scissors
  • Acrylic spray gloss.
  • Small, square shadow box frames from any craft store. Black or natural wood works best.

Workout

  • Make your marks with oil pastels. The marks are lines, squiggles, and curves.  Remember the Drawing is Energy exercise in the beginning of the book?  The hardest part is having to summon up your inner two year old.
  • Have soft pastels available for the third step.
  • As you make your marks on each of the different papers, choose different color combinations. Use just black, white, grey on one paper.  Use earthy tones or blues and purples on another.
  • After the oil pastel, paint over your marks with watercolors or tempera cakes. You will achieve a batik effect.  Layer the paint colors. Let them run together.  The watercolors do not show up as well on the brown grocery bag or Kraft paper, but the soft pastels look fabulous!
    • Draw soft pastels on top of the watercolor paints after they have dried, or directly on the paper. Blend the pastels with your fingers.  Try adding colors on top each other.  Use warm colors together and cool colors together.  Instead of just drawing with yellow, add some orange or red over parts of the yellow.  Purple and light blue are fun to layer too.
    • After the above step, you could even paint some acrylic paint onto your papers. Do you see how each additional layer makes the pieces more interesting?  Experiment using the same color combinations with each layer or different color combinations with each layer.
    • After all your papers are painted and dried. You may have set these aside for a day or two.  Or, let’s be honest, weeks or months (that is OK).  Cut each paper in half.  Leave one half whole and tear or cut the other halves into shapes and pieces.  Glue the torn shapes onto the whole pieces of paper with any kind of glue.  Layer one piece on top of another.
    • When you are done, find your favorite 3-inch square sections. Cut out as many 3-inch square sections as you like.
    • Spray the squares with clear gloss spray paint until they are thick with the gloss. This could be as many as 8 layers of spray gloss.  They should almost look like ceramic tiles.
    • Float your “tiles” in the picture frames. Hang them in a group or in one of those small strips of wall in your home.  Aren’t you artsy!
    • Now, look back to the paper weaving exercise in Chapter 12. You could cut your layered pieces into strips and weave them together rather than the tiles.  You could collage in old book pages, photographs, pressed flowers….Do you see all of the possibilities

     

      • Draw soft pastels on top of the watercolor paints after they have dried, or directly on the paper. Blend the pastels with your fingers.  Try adding colors on top each other.  Use warm colors together and cool colors together.  Instead of just drawing with yellow, add some orange or red over parts of the yellow.  Purple and light blue are fun to layer too.
      • After the above step, you could even paint some acrylic paint onto your papers. Do you see how each additional layer makes the pieces more interesting?  Experiment using the same color combinations with each layer or different color combinations with each layer.
      • After all your papers are painted and dried. You may have set these aside for a day or two.  Or, let’s be honest, weeks or months (that is OK).  Cut each paper in half.  Leave one half whole and tear or cut the other halves into shapes and pieces.  Glue the torn shapes onto the whole pieces of paper with any kind of glue.  Layer one piece on top of another.
      • When you are done, find your favorite 3-inch square sections. Cut out as many 3-inch square sections as you like.
      • Spray the squares with clear gloss spray paint until they are thick with the gloss. This could be as many as 8 layers of spray gloss.  They should almost look like ceramic tiles.
    • Float your “tiles” in the picture frames. Hang them in a group or in one of those small strips of wall in your home.  Aren’t you artsy!
    • Now, look back to the paper weaving exercise in Chapter 12. You could cut your layered pieces into strips and weave them together rather than the tiles.  You could collage in old book pages, photographs, pressed flowers….Do you see all of the possibilities?

    Each time you spend time with one of these Creativity Workouts, you are attuning your mind to be able to receive more and more energy from your intuitive, imaginative, infinite mind (or SOUL!).

    Thank you for being here,

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