Perhaps it has to do with having a Dick Blick's Art Supplies store nearby, but for the past five years I have gotten into acrylics.
In a way, after 13 years working in chalk pastels, a fellow artist said, "your pastel style is 'painterly'!" So I took up acrylics.
Though they dry vexingly quickly, especially in our dry Minnesota winters, I liked being able to have to plan less and express more.
Then, thanks to my wife's efforts at Falcon Heights United Church of Christ, where the pastors were open to allowing their space be used to exhibit art, I got the chance to create liturgical art.
My wife and I worked together to organize a way for the congregation, mostly non-artists, to help create four panels for Lenten based on the themes of "Temptation/Threat", "Thirst", "Stars", and "Love" and the Psalms that accompany them. My wife, who has extensive experience in working with non-artist on collective art projects, said there was a need to provide structure so non-artists would be less intimidated.
Acrylic molding paste allowed me to create a hard, white, textured background in the theme that the participants could paint over -- freeing them from the intimidation of the purely "blank canvas" while still allowing them the freedom to create.
It was not only the participants who ended up being freed: as you can see in the slide show, I have been using exotic acrylic media, such as "fiber textured molding paste", to develop a kind of child-like "folk" style, that has revitalized my sense of art-as-play!
In a way, after 13 years working in chalk pastels, a fellow artist said, "your pastel style is 'painterly'!" So I took up acrylics.
Though they dry vexingly quickly, especially in our dry Minnesota winters, I liked being able to have to plan less and express more.
Then, thanks to my wife's efforts at Falcon Heights United Church of Christ, where the pastors were open to allowing their space be used to exhibit art, I got the chance to create liturgical art.
My wife and I worked together to organize a way for the congregation, mostly non-artists, to help create four panels for Lenten based on the themes of "Temptation/Threat", "Thirst", "Stars", and "Love" and the Psalms that accompany them. My wife, who has extensive experience in working with non-artist on collective art projects, said there was a need to provide structure so non-artists would be less intimidated.
Acrylic molding paste allowed me to create a hard, white, textured background in the theme that the participants could paint over -- freeing them from the intimidation of the purely "blank canvas" while still allowing them the freedom to create.
It was not only the participants who ended up being freed: as you can see in the slide show, I have been using exotic acrylic media, such as "fiber textured molding paste", to develop a kind of child-like "folk" style, that has revitalized my sense of art-as-play!
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