Exercises in Art
Tapestry sample as a result of an art exercise
Art exercises: what’s that?
Some people call them prompts. It’s when you’re given some guidelines to work with and you create something within those guidelines. There are entire books devoted to them. Often design books and courses will include prompts, too, like Tommye Scanlin’s “Tapestry: Design Basics and Beyond”, Rebecca Mezoff’s design courses, or my own Elements course.
Art exercises help you to expand your mind and use a different part of your brain that may be sluggish. They spark creativity. They open up new doors.
We all develop our own style and our own way of working. No need to shake that up. But I’ve discovered over the past few years that these exercises are a great form of “play” - taking any pressure off the design process and sometimes digging into the subconscious …
As a result, I’ve taken a number of short online classes involving inspirational prompts. I wrote about Sophie Mums Seed Art Lab and how much I enjoyed that when Covid first hit. I have continued to practice what I was introduced to in her workshops in my studio and several exercises have resulted in tapestries. It looks like she’s still offering the online versions I took.
Design in progress from original prompt in Seed Art Lab…
Last year, I also discovered Tansy Hargan and her online classes. I have to credit Joan Griffin for suggesting her class to me initially (thank you, Joan!).
Tansy currently has 6 different courses listed. I’m doing her “Sleep-Draw-Sleep” class right now. What a wonderful concept for a class! She presents 4 prompts a day … to be worked at different times of the day. This one really piqued my interest because it was a life-changing moment for me when I discovered how I work best in each phase of the day. I realized I’m sharpest in the mornings, so I write. After brunch (I never eat breakfast- always a brunch later in the morning)- creativity kicks in and I weave or work on the design process. In the evening, I need to do something that slows the day down. I still weave, but usually on something mindless, like color studies.
Although Tansy switches up materials, I’ve devoted one little notebook to the course with each page a new prompt.
Small 6” by 4” sketchbook for daily prompts from “Sleep-Draw-Sleep”
Both artists include Facebook groups in their courses or hashtags to follow on Instagram where students can interact, too.
The other big plus with both Sophie and Tansy: a fresh approach to the online form of teaching. Sophie’s class is presented in email form (long email form!) with gobs of inspiration and links that lead to further study and research. Tansy’s are in the form of videos. Very calming videos where we see her doing the exercises herself. Her lulling sing-song voice is something I look forward to each morning in itself! Soothing. Her audio is like listening to birds - sometimes literally!
A lot can be learned about your preferences, your technique, your strengths when you step outside the box and look at the world from a different angle. Sometimes it yields very pleasant and unexpected results and can serve as a jumping off point for a more refined design.
I’m seeing this happen over and over again in my Elements class. One of the most challenging -but fun - sections of developing the course was to come up with 8 to 10 “exercises” for each element.
Want to give one a try?
Here’s one from the Shape Element:
“Find an artwork that emphasizes shape and appeals to you. Take the basic composition and play with substituting different shapes for the actual shapes that are in the piece.“
It’s been exciting to watch students progress from an exercise to a resulting tapestry. In the coming weeks/months I’m going to be highlighting student work from the Elements course where an exercise led to a finished tapestry. Stay tuned!