21 SECRETS Workshop - Teacher 6 - Dina Wakley

This is a letter I wrote to my Teacher of the ART 

Hi Dina (Wakley): 

from The Dirty Footprints 21 Secrets Workshop 

This was so cool!  I think I might have found my style...  What an all day process.  oy.  Well, the first go at it I really loathed.  It took 3/4 of the day.  So I decided to cover it all up with gesso and then finger paint.  I loved that and wondered why I hadn't done that all along!  I realized I was too much into your style after watching the video - very aware of my boxes etc. when I am a complete spiral gal.  

So after I did the gesso I did a bazillion circles with my palette knife and the wonderful gal I did underneath all the gesso, with a camera taking pics of her came through under the gesso (the colors), which I loved!  

Then I decided "close your eyes Samara, get rid of all the visual stim and just sink down."  And WOW what a diff!  I opened them and saw ME!  I still didn't know what I saw but I knew it was MY style.  So I looked and looked and looked.  Close up, far away, upside down etc. and then found it. Just like you suggested:  "look at your picture just like you look up at the clouds and find your picture....or not!"

I have always hated nursery stories and never said/read them to my kids for all the negative psychological/philosophical reasons and studies that are out there about them.  And this is what I saw in my pic.  WOW I thought...how amazing.  Here I am scribbling like a child with a black pencil with my eyes closed, and how I feel about nursery rhymes (sp) comes through.  

I took some "under my paper fabric" that I use for the messes but keep for just things like this, for the wagon and wheels.  The top of the baby was initially arms, as I saw it, then when I was finished I saw the weight of the nursery stories on babies (in my view only.)  Circles and circles and circles of them (all the generations telling the same stories.)  

The wagon (for me) was pulling the child into the abyss of the nursery rhymes (sp) and believing (in my view) they were innocent nice little stories (or walt disney movies and plays) that we take our children to (I didn't with my 27, 24 and now 14 year old) - without looking at the psychological imperatives it is brainwashing them with (in my view and the studies "I" choose to side with in the journals etc.)  

Wheels above, wheels below..."falling off the wagon"....literally and figuratively" because their was so much guilt (in my case) to tell my babies these stories or to be at "mommy and me groups" and be the only mommy who didn't know the words because I chose consciously to not have them in my psyche or the psyche of my cubs.  

So Dinawww.dinawakley.com, my newest artist kisses friend, onward to the art, now you have the story and how effective "what you wanted to achieve was" in my somewhat convoluded process.  Oh, btw, the second piece took 1/4 of the time of the first piece!  No surprise.  Honestly Dina...I look at it and and am shocked such a process of (my new name - for me - "Scribble till you Dribble" (while always giving you credit for teaching me) - could be MY most comfortable way to epitomize who I am and where I am at, was at, will be...without even knowing it!  So Random!!! or not!!!  Gosh, I hope I can one day come to one of your workshops in person and see where I go with it.

I'll upload a few so you can see the techniques I used.  I loved this and will surely do a few more before I move on to the next workshop.  thanks so much for helping me to find MY way that digs deep to where I "need" to be! 

Kisses, Samara

 

Products Used

SU Pastels

Dylusions Mists

Inktense Pencils

Watercolor Acrylic Tubes (of every sort)

Pitt Pen, Faber Castell, Sharpie, Uniball

Drydex Spackling

Pre-Mixed Adhesive and Grout

Tombow Markers

Fiskars Templates and Stencils

Royal Paintbrushes

Pure Cotton Fabric

Cotton Material Cover that covers a Cooked Ham (used as a stencil)

water (of course)

My Fingers!

Plastic Spatula

Sharing Picture With

to be determined