Breaking down the mystery of designing

Hello Friends,

TGIF....Thank God It's Friday. This has been a heck of a week. Thankfully I am recovering from sickness and back in high gear. We have had a very interesting week at the studio. One of the goals that we have for our students is that every student should become a designer. When I started painting I can remember clearly saying that I would never design my own pieces and that I only wanted to paint other people's designs. I'm not sure why I took such a hard stand but I do know that it probably has to do with the fact that I didn't feel capable. Designing seemed to be shrouded in mystery.

Through time I have come to realize that designing isn't as difficult as most people think. David has done a wonderful job breaking down the separate elements of designing and, quite frankly, I have done so much of it that I can't believe that it ever seemed impossible. Designing is a privilege and I get so excited when our students embrace it.

Since I have been spouting off about designing for a long time, I have decided to put my words into action. Everyone can design! Everyone is an artist!

As a result, our advanced class is going to spend several months designing their own pieces. The classes will be spent studying design theories and talking about different designing philosophies. In addition, we will spend time giving design guidelines and giving structure to the designing process. As David says, "Designing becomes easier if we have parameters to work within".

This is a subject that many artists are interested in. How do you make the leap from doing other people's work to doing your own work? Over the next year I am going to take you on a journey with our students. I want to share their difficulties, their challenges and their successes. In addition I would like to share their stories. The people in this class have struggled and confronted major life challenges....debilitating illnesses, lost loved ones, split families, dissapointments with jobs etc, etc.... But it is the art that keeps them going.

Some of our students have already started to do their own designing. Melodye has been painting for a few years and is a wonderful student and a fabulous painter. She has dabbled in design and has expressed an interest but with this recent project she outdid herself. I am so pleased with her work. Melodye loves the written word, more specifically Bible verses. She uses Bible verses as a springboard to design. So, Melodye brought me the seeds for this design and a nice line drawing. We discussed how best to develop the rooster. In addition, we had to change some of the directions of the flowers as they were pointing in such a way that your eye was led out of the painting. We made small changes to her design that made a huge difference. The next step was developing a palette that would work. That took a bit of trial and error but I think the end result is delightful. When Melodye was a newer painter she struggled with the casual style but now she has mastered it. By setting up parameters for Melodye she was able to come up with a wonderful design.

This is going to be a wonderful thread on our blog. More to come in the future! Below is Melodye's design. I am going to encourage her to make this into a pattern packet and put it on the Heritage website as a lateral design. Way to go, Mel!
Sincerely,

Paul

creativelegacyartstudio.com