This week's Make Art That Sells assignment really stretched me and the way I think about my work. The assignment was to create an abstract piece using floral elements, a word, and the colors blue and green. In case you haven't noticed, I never, ever create abstract art, and I didn't even know where to start. Instead, I used Lilla's technique of breaking down large projects into mini assignments and focused on one piece at a time.
I started with a topic that feels very comfortable to me (cats, of course) and started building up the floral element around it. I used some work by Emily Hughes as inspiration, since I love the way she uses pencil and florals to create some perfectly whimsical pieces. I found her work after last week's assignment as I was perusing the children's books at Powell's for more inspiration. (Sidenote: I cannot wait to paint this piece! I need more time for fun and silly painting, stat!)
The next piece of the puzzle was the word. I really enjoy hand lettering, so I decided to focus on the word alone to find a fun way to present the letterforms.
Once I had the word and the florals, the only thing left to do was combine them, and I was suddenly no longer intimidated by the project. I know this isn't a strict abstract (and I even managed to sneak in a little character), but it's something very different from my usual work that I enjoyed making, and that, to me, is a huge win.
We've just begun our last week of Make Art That Sells, and I'm very excited about this next project, so I'm off to sketch a few fun ideas.
