Kassi, an expressive artist working in Scotland, has come up with a cool art activity to help you work out your feelings about lockdown - and get creative too! Watch Kassi's video, below, to guide you through the whole relaxing process...
You will need: Paper (old wallpaper will do), Scissors, Crayons or Wax Crayons, Oil Pastels, a Sharpie Pen or Uni Posca Pen, an old plastic card or Palette Knife, Paint, Glitter Paint, Glitter
Kassi says:
I believe when we make art it is more about our experience and the process rather than the end result. I don’t concern myself with making ‘beautiful art’ - I focus on the journey whilst making it. Using painting paper, wallpaper lining or the back of left over wallpaper, cut or tear a piece that feels ‘just the right size’. If the paper curls because it has been rolled, wet lightly all over to flatten and leave to dry for a while. Pick up a crayon and begin writing some 'feeling' words about your experience of lockdown all over your paper. Don’t worry about keeping things neat and tidy - I wrote my words all over the paper, some sideways and all layered on top of each other, a lovely jumble of pink, blue and yellow chaos.
Next, I used neon oil pastels in yellow, pink, orange and blue and made big, swirling, curly spirals all over my 'feeling' words... this felt pretty good and I loved the colours. Using my plastic palette knife (an old plastic card works too) I scraped fluorescent pink and metallic blue paint around over the words, sprinkling a little pink glitter on the wet paint here and there. While I was waiting for the picture to dry, I made another in the same way and finished this one off by scraping a night sky blue all over it.
I took a photo of both of my paintings and began to wonder what they would be like if I added a ‘focus’ image on top - I found an app that let me draw on my paintings. I drew trees, flowers, butterflies and a rainbow... perhaps you would like to give this a go too?
Setting the app aside, I wanted to add a hand drawn tree to one background and opted for the night sky blue painting. I drew an outline of a tree with white pastel to go around it. I noticed my inner critic pointed out lots of faults with my tree, but I tend to let go of those things because they get in the way of creativity & enjoyment. I added pink fluorescent paint in the negative spaces between branches and roots - I really liked seeing all the different colours and markings from earlier layers showing through. I added a layer of navy glitter paint on my tree to make it more sparkly and vibrant and sprinkled cerise pink heart sequins on top of the wet glitter paint.
I wonder if you would like to add an image to your paintings? Trust that whatever you want to add will be exactly what you need to express right now. It could be a cat, dog, rainbow, horse, face, a tree, dragonfly, a unicorn… anything at all! Just keep on going, following your intuition and see how your painting emerges. I sense my blue tree is all about love & hope. I love it! I wonder if you can sense what your painting might be about for you? Perhaps you would like to share your work in the comments! Take care of yourself, you matter!
Cathy says:
I love Kassi's ideas and her video is so gentle and encouraging... it's well worth setting forty minutes aside to do some expressive art along with her. A perfect way to tune into your feelings about the coronavirus lockdown and do something arty and creative with those feelings! Have a go... and COMMENT BELOW to tell us how you got on!
Kassi says:
I believe when we make art it is more about our experience and the process rather than the end result. I don’t concern myself with making ‘beautiful art’ - I focus on the journey whilst making it. Using painting paper, wallpaper lining or the back of left over wallpaper, cut or tear a piece that feels ‘just the right size’. If the paper curls because it has been rolled, wet lightly all over to flatten and leave to dry for a while. Pick up a crayon and begin writing some 'feeling' words about your experience of lockdown all over your paper. Don’t worry about keeping things neat and tidy - I wrote my words all over the paper, some sideways and all layered on top of each other, a lovely jumble of pink, blue and yellow chaos.
I took a photo of both of my paintings and began to wonder what they would be like if I added a ‘focus’ image on top - I found an app that let me draw on my paintings. I drew trees, flowers, butterflies and a rainbow... perhaps you would like to give this a go too?
I wonder if you would like to add an image to your paintings? Trust that whatever you want to add will be exactly what you need to express right now. It could be a cat, dog, rainbow, horse, face, a tree, dragonfly, a unicorn… anything at all! Just keep on going, following your intuition and see how your painting emerges. I sense my blue tree is all about love & hope. I love it! I wonder if you can sense what your painting might be about for you? Perhaps you would like to share your work in the comments! Take care of yourself, you matter!
Watch Kassi's lovely video here... and work along with her for a lovely, expressive art project that's soothing, fun and cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgZ9IMle24Cathy says:
I love Kassi's ideas and her video is so gentle and encouraging... it's well worth setting forty minutes aside to do some expressive art along with her. A perfect way to tune into your feelings about the coronavirus lockdown and do something arty and creative with those feelings! Have a go... and COMMENT BELOW to tell us how you got on!
This is so inspiring!xxx
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