I am honored to have been interviewed by Bill Jordan of Candid Art Interviews!
He asked thoughtful questions about my process and features several of my still life, figurative and landscape paintings.
Thank you Bill!
Eighteen years ago, I was hired to be the Artist-in-Residence at Lily Lake Elementary School in Stillwater, Minnesota. The project was open-ended where I was given full latitude to design and implement an educational art program for over 700 students.
As a representational painter, it was my desire to teach these kindergarten through 6th graders fundamental drawing skills, rendering form with knowledge of light and shadow and use of perspective, and how this understanding is instrumental for creating realistic paintings. Furthermore, it was important for each student to have an individual contribution to the final visual result.
Those goals resulted in a plan to paint a very large trompe l'oeil style mural in the library.
Now came the planning. Weeks and weeks of it.
Had you walked by my studio window to view my progress you would have found me staring into space, appearing to be doing absolutely nothing.....certainly not painting.
What came out of that time "doing" nothing?
First, goals and a proposal:
Measuring the space and preparing a layout:
More measuring:
Brainstorming of content:
Each individual piece of the "wallpaper" would be a kite, designed by each student on translucent vellum, and glued to the wall.
What size should each kite be, considering the available wall space and the number of students?
Lots of math:
And a final small watercolor mockup of the content:
But before the painting could commence, each student was introduced, classroom by classroom, to concepts in representational painting and what trompe l'oeil painting is and how we would all be painting a mural of this type. Each student designed a kite segment of the wallpaper:
and later, had a group lesson on light and shading:
Finally, after months of planning and preparing, painting of the mural could begin:
And finally, the mural was finished. Students also designed the book spines:
The time I spent staring into space, thinking, planning, visualizing, pondering was time well spent.
As such, there was not a single hiccup with this project, which left room, once the painting began, for the energy and joy of creativity to rule the day.
The artist who doesn't paint is fundamental to the artist who does.
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