I am ending a 5 week art course on Friday with Mira Reisberg and Maya Gonzalez called Hero’s Art Journey.  For nearly 5 weeks, we have been studying, listening, watching webinars and creating art.  The one thing not listed in the description for the class was the bonding that would take place with the other class participants and our instructors.

Daily, we create then post our work for everyone in the class to view and comment.  I have no art background. I am a writer.  So, I had nothing at all to lose and never compared myself to the well established artists in the class. It is a wonderful mixture of beginner and professional artists.

Maya kept telling us that everyone is an artist.  We have learned to believe her. We post the art, many comment with kind words, encouragement and cheering, from this strange new world called facebook.  Our group has become close. We are friends who have never met but trust each other with our art.  We paint and draw about our own insecurities but share and grow with others we will probably never meet.

Our first assignment was to do a self-portrait…talk about diving into the deep end! I sketched and erased and sketched and erased until finally…I just drew it.  I hadn’t bought my actual art supplies for the class yet so I was using a child’s art kit given to my daughter many years ago.  I drew myself in old oil pastels with an outline of Crayola for good measure.  I stared at it. Put it away. Pulled it out and stared at it again and then took a picture with my ipad and posted it to the class facebook page.  I was secretly kind of proud of my drawing. It didn’t really look like me but she had a certain flair, you know, something about the gal in the portrait was brave . It was obviously done with less than professional materials by a less than professional artist and was out there for all to critique.  CRINGE

Soon, there were many nice comments about the eyes, the detail, the colors etc. Everyone was so kind and generous with complements that made me want to draw more self-portraits.  I hadn’t done art since grade school so what in the blank was I doing here? Anyway, one of the artists commented that my drawing was fierce. I was stopped in my tracks by her comment. Fierce…had never thought of myself as fierce. I kind of like that word but didn’t really know how it applied to my drawing.

As this course has gone on, I would definitely describe myself as fierce. I have jumped in and tried sketching, collage, water color painting, pastels, mixed media, and digital art. I have recently signed my daughter and I up for private art classes and can’t wait until our next class.  Am I an artist…yes. Do I have a long way to go before I will be illustrating picture books…yes.

The art has brought out a side of my creativity that was resting, hiding in the shadows and waiting to be dusted off and brought into the light.  My writing is thriving because of this class and I am finding a part of myself that I never knew existed.

Are you fierce? Take an art class and find out! Grrrrrrrr…

Angie

Angie Karcher-Artist in Training