"Paintings With Personality"

 I painted this right after the terrorist attack at Garissa University in Kenya. It represents my sorrow for the suffering families and my disgust for the fear that is being spread throughout the world. It is titled "Kenya 2015". The medium is acrylic and oil sticks, size, 11x15, and it is not for sale. 

Yesterday was my turn to host the critique group. We have two members with consecutive birthdays, one of whose birthday was yesterday; so, we had a critique/birthday party. Honey helped me a lot in the kitchen, especially with the food shopping and cleanup. The food shopping is where the problem’s started. Somehow, I didn’t end up with all the ingredients I needed, even after poor Honey went to the grocery store twice! I was forced to get original and look in our cupboards, thinking, “OK, this might work in place of that, or maybe this.” The end result was a product that resembled the original recipe, but wasn’t quite the same (perhaps unfortunately) but it was definitely my own creation.

Experimenting in art is much more interesting than experimenting in the kitchen, especially when attempting different art media. Medium in art is the material the artist works with, including the support. And just like with cooking recipes, mediums have different aspects, certain things work together, and need different techniques. There are many reasons to try different mediums in your art making, I have listed a few of those below.

1. Get you out of a rut – It is tempting for artists to continue working as they always have, but to think, react, and work in the same way, never deviating is bad for creativity. They end up in a rut that feels impossible to escape. Trying a different medium is an excellent way to get out of your creative rut.
2. Help with visual expression – Visual Expression is for artists who already know the technical aspects of art making, and are ready to move ahead. Those artists who move beyond the technical hope to bring out strong reactions in the viewer, and work toward depicting emotion in their work. Certain mediums are better at depicting certain emotions and can be a great help to artists in depicting the necessary feelings.
3. Elicit different effects on viewers – Artists want their viewers to hang around and study their work, and to ask themselves questions. My friend, John Wolff, a photorealistic painter, www.johnbwolff.com, made a painting of himself as a child, using an old black and white photo as a reference. In the painting, he looked mischievous, like he couldn’t wait to escape and be about his own affairs. It raised all kinds of questions in my mind about who the boy was and what happened to him as an adult. John’s chosen medium was watercolor, which conveyed the wistful, gentle, orneriness perfectly.
4. Block artist block – Spending hours at a time in the same place, doing the same thing, in the same way can get boring. If you aren’t careful, creativity becomes work and goes on a “to do” list. Make discovering new ways of creating a priority, try a new medium. Open your mind, enjoy learning, and break the block.
5. Learn and grow – By trying different media, you’ll learn more about what you may want to pursue in art. If you are a painter, you’ll get better at color and value choices, and develop different skills. You’ll learn things you didn’t know existed, and your technique will improve. Reading about the mediums first will help in choosing which ones you want to try.

It’s exhilarating to get out of your comfort zone for a while and go to another medium. You’ll be a better artist when you return to your original medium, having learned, grown and improved your creativity by trying something different.

Please leave your comments below and share this post with your friends.   Later, Judy

www.judyballance.com