Embracing Limitations

Our final lesson in the Find Your Joy free weeklong course was all about imposing limits.  The teacher listed materials to use (three paint colors plus black and white) along with a few other supplies like charcoal and oil pastel, pencil and ink.   We had an order to add brush strokes and other marks to the paper as well as a small bit of collage.  Each step was in order.

This makes for a lot of limits.  But like a sonnet, there are strict limits and a form that you must follow. But in the sonnet you can express whatever idea you desire. (I learned this concept from a children's book that I read every year or so. - The book is "A Wrinkle in Time.")

Here are my four paintings from this exercise.

#1

#2

#3

#4

Honestly I have my favorite.  I think the last one needs something to finish it.  I am not sure what at this point.  The other three I am happy to leave as they are. 

I do believe that I will be using these limitations again, although I may re-write them just a bit for my purposes.   This would be a great exercise to use for painting on greeting card blanks made of watercolor paper.  But perhaps it would be wiser to paint the pieces on watercolor paper and just attach those to the cards. Why?  Because as I am doing these I don't know which will work out to be the "top" when they are finished.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

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