Ink Painting: Zen, Big Brush, and Expressive Mark-Making | Paula Roland

Instructor: Paula Roland (View Bio)

Registration Deadline: September 15, 2023

Level: All

Portfolio Review Required: No

Class Limit: 10

Get out of your head and into the creative zone using mindful, whole-body exercises. Work large and make bold ink marks that are spontaneous and confident! Learn to trust your judgement and your own innate sensibility. The body and tools work together and build a confident and personal style.

As exercises are completed and practiced, participants are encouraged to follow their own interests, experiment, and play! This has led many to a new or expanded voice with abstraction and other contemporary approaches.

BE INSPIRED

• Apply Eastern philosophy to contemporary expression.
• Be better prepared to work abstractly in any media.
• Be inspired by historical and contemporary artists, eastern and western, who practice these methods.

Work large and make bold marks that are spontaneous and confident!  A bold mark can be a statement that pulls a piece together.

ACTIVITIES

• Personalize your marks by creating your own tools and brushes from materials we collect on meditative walks.
• Use the "Big Brush" or mops with ink to create body-size marks by moving in a centered and fluid way.
• Through prompts and exercises, generate a visual vocabulary of expressive mark-making for these and for your other bodies of work.
• Create numerous ink-on-paper pieces that can stand alone, or combine with other media or collage.
• Learn how to present or mount the works to a board or panel.

This course is for you if you are an adventurous beginner, a skilled artist or designer, or an art or mindfulness enthusiast of any stripe. It is a path toward personal and artistic growth and self-awareness, regardless of art experience!

We use a variety of papers (Eastern and Western, large and small), brushes, black and colored inks, and inexpensive and found materials to fashion tools. These are the primary materials needed. A supply list will be available soon.

Learning takes place through demonstrations by Paula, both live and recorded, discussion, practice and free expression by both group and individual activity.

On the final day we create contemporary works that are your personal contemporary statements and perhaps further your other bodies of work.

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Daily