In the last year, I have nurtured a love for PanPastel colours since teaching Drawing Wild Animals with Craftsy, inspired by a series of Endangered Animals where their pastel innovation excited my spirit and creative process.
Although I have not had much experience using washi paper in my work, PanPastel recently asked if I would demo for Washi Wednesdays at The Japanese Paper Place.
I have been very excited to experiment with a selection of their beautiful, delicate papers, in preparation to demonstrate PanPastels & Mixed Media on Wednesday March 30th 2016.
Demonstrations will repeat throughout the day at approximately 1:00, 2:15, 3:30, 5:00 and 6:00. Please drop in at your convenience. It's Free!
It's the last demo to be held at their current warehouse (77 Brock Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 2L3) as The Japanese Paper Place is moving!
This could very well be a transformative, amiable direction in my artistic voice ....
I very much look forward to sharing my journey with you!
love light
In the last few months, I had been waiting around to have time and a light bulb of inspiration to create. Perhaps winter blues, a touch of depression, and loss of focus - stress got the better of me. Although I wanted to sketch, to doodle, to experiment (I even splurged at the art store for some new sketchbooks and ink, in a moment of inspiration after visiting the AGO to see Turner's Painting Set Free exhibit) motivation seemed to be a random, fleeting, wondrous thing that fell through my fingers like apathetic sand... until I recently read this quote:
"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case." -Chuck Close
This was all timely with the demo request because I am mostly a project based artist, and I am grateful. Thankfully, throughout the winter months, I have still been open to booking and collaborating despite how I was feeling. This zest has reminded me that although it's is OK to feel the blahs and we should be gentle with ourselves when going through tough times, it is important to remember what it is you truly want, and honour your spirit... because this understanding is what gets us back to dancing our way to BIG dreams! Self-motivation is part of the creative process. So with this spark of truth, I am going to fight these blahs every inch of the way forward! I am making the effort to create. This is where all the wise words come into play ... in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes determination, dedication, self-discipline ... patience, trust and persistence ♥
