Artful Intentions: Week 10

Did you ever get an idea in your head for a project? And get really excited about it? So excited you can’t wait to start? And then you start  … and … stare blankly at the page (or screen)? Sigh. That’s exactly what happened to me when I sat down to do my response to Cilenia’s Week 10 challenge:

• Use a 3-D Element
• Add numbers to your art
• Use the word “hope”

Without going all deep and profound and wishy-washy on you, I am discovering that I have a tendency to be an “intuitive” kind of artist. Meaning I just start laying paint down, instinctively (or maybe impulsively is a better word, lol!) grabbing whatever colors or tools are within reach, without a real plan. That approach doesn’t always work out well (as you’ve seen in some of my videos!), but I’ve become quite comfortable working that way. In the digital world, that process translates to opening a new Photoshop document and using random “brushes” to “paint”  and adding various “textures” to create a background. Just playing until I feel satisfied with the result.

But this time, when I saw “hope” was the word I needed to use, the word “dream” popped into my head. For the three-dimensional element, I immediately thought of a paint brush. Then, in my mind, I sketched this beautiful woman – hair all flow-y and etherial with a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes. I was so excited! opened up Photoshop  and then … realized I had absolutely no idea how to do what my mind just envisioned. Starting with a plan turned out to be problematic. I tried sketching the lady in Photoshop. Bad idea. I tried on my iPad with the same result (okay, it was worse) and then tried actually using pencil and paper, but she looked like … well, not at all like I would ever share her with anyone – even in my most fearless moments.  Sigh.

Then I remembered that I have a face stencil by Jane Davenport so I used that as a basis for the lady’s face and managed to add in the hair and eyes and then used my digital magic to turn her into an inky sketch I could use in Photoshop. She doesn’t look exactly how I planned, and it took me forever (three days!) to figure out what else I wanted on the page. I’m not 100% satisfied with it (that’s the perfectionist side of my brain talking), but it does say what I wanted to say.

I wished I had thought of it beforehand, but after I finished – and just for the heck of it – I used The Google to research if the word “hope” has a color associated with it. Now I’m totally freaked out!