2020 has given the idea of ‘going viral’ a whole new meaning. It feels like we are historically in the beginning of a new epoch, a new distinctive time period. Because we have been ‘given’ this isolating pause, we are just starting to see how different our lives may become. And when we have drastic changes to our lives, our art follows along and reflects those changes. As an artist, I’m used to working alone, it’s how I work best. But in this new age, I am forced to be more social – I ‘Zoom’ several times a week; I FaceTime family and friends way more than I ever did; I share art on FaceBook and Instagram more than ever with more people; and I’m collaborating on line with other artists. With this time there has also been a ‘viral’ spread of ideas and concepts and experimenting that didn’t happen before. I am very excited anticipating the ‘new’ art that will come from this ‘new’ age.

Public opinion wanted!
​This sketch is done by Jacqui Low and she would like to know which sketch you like best and why.

​
EDGES .....Lost and Found or Soft and Hard
I cannot emphasize enough how important the use of lost and found edges are in a painting. Nor only are they are a strong visual factor in a painting, but they direct the focus of your image and make it more interesting and painterly. Losing and finding boundaries or edges help suggest form and bulk – this is a critical step in painting.
I first learned to work with lost and found edges when studying watercolor with Master Painter Charles Reid. Watercolor takes advantage of watercolor's inherent wet-in-wet nature. When I switched to acrylics I found it was possible to blur my edges with acrylic also. Soft and hard  edges create a resting point for your viewer. They are intriguing to the eye and encourage the viewer to mentally complete the indistinct portions of the painting, thereby creating real involvement with the work.
The viewer has now become part of the creative journey, dancing the viewer's eye along the contour of form.
~Sefla

​The word ‘series’ really isn’t an art term, it’s borrowed from mathematics and can show how we experience or perceive time as a series of events in sequence. (Think flip-book) Monet is probably one of the masters of this. His ‘Haystacks’ are a series of 25 canvases of haystacks painted from the same location and perspective, but at different times of day and year showing them in different lights, seasons, weather... it even goes a little deeper thinking about how each painting is a moment frozen in ‘time’ and how the series begins to tell a story.

Why I like to work in a series:
1- Once I have an idea or theme, then it’s easy to start working on it. For me the hardest part is trying to figure out where to start, what to work on. I’m always hoping that I’ll come up with ‘the one.’ Which would be great, but in the meantime... it seems that I’m more likely to get someplace if I just start working on something, anything. Even if it’s drawing the same exact picture over and over. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, it is taking you somewhere and you may not know where you’ll end up until you get there.
2 - It helps to create a unified body of work, which may not be clear to you until you have 10 or 20 or 100...
3- It gives me the opportunity to experiment... how would this look in green? What if it were longer? What if there were 2 of the same image? The series allows me to try all of the options, not have to just decide on one.
4 - It becomes a narrative and tells a story - for me it is therapy.

-Evelyn

 Surrendering to a process requires that we take a “Leap of Faith.”

How does it work? Do we just close our eyes 
​        Hold our nose
              and
​        Leap — trusting the unknowable part of ourselves, as we jump into the unknown?

I think of it as taking a trip without a map — or a GPS — getting lost and continuing to stay in trust mode while feeling the discomfort of the work not being what I want…yet.

So, the big question:

Can we be in this place without judging it?
Can we gag the critic?
Can we forge ahead without knowing where we will land?

As we are taken out of our comfort zone, working in a constant state of experimentation and discovery,
​we must learn to play with paint with a child’s mind: the “I don’t know” mind.

What is happening we cannot foresee — it will be a surprise.

We are not trying to make a painting, but we just might make a chunk of Life that we could never have even imagined:

if you trust the process…

​-Sefla