Mom Trip Days 4 and 5

We have been in "the studio" for two days now and have really been able to unleash the creativity and are learning a lot. It is all really great fun to learn a new way to express yourself using paint on fabric. It is also incredibly tiring. I can't express how tired I am by the end of the day, but I do want to try and get this down before I slip off to Never Never Land...

We start each day with what the instructor, Susan Shie, calls "Library Time". This is a time where we take 10 minutes and just draw or journal without talking just to clear our minds. Actually, let me back up a bit... Susan is an artist that does almost folk art pieces and they are all covered in writing and tells a story and journaling her life and/or what is happening in the world at the time that she is working on a particular piece. But, to unleash the creativity in us we all have to start off drawing as if we were 6 year olds without stopping and thinking whether it is realistic or what anybody eels thinks about it and just let the juices flow. 

So, we draw or journal for 10 minutes during Library Time. Then we decide what the theme for the day is going to be. Yesterday, we made a list of things from which to draw inspiration from and then we go from there. Yesterday, our theme was "Time". That is pretty broad and left everybody open to do whatever they felt like doing. I got to thinking about the passage of time and settled on the Riddle of the Sphinx. Here is my outline drawing that I started with before I started adding color: 

And here it is with color added:

Here is a picture of our instructor and my mom's piece on the table on the lower right:

Today's theme that we were to work on was "Family". This is what I drew thus far:

I've just started adding color to it and will work more on it tomorrow, along with our next theme. 

On top of the class during the day today, this evening we went and saw a lecture from Amy Tan, author of "The Joy Luck Club" among many other books. It was in interesting talk about the "Heart of a Writer". She talked about her family and where her writing comes from within her. All really neat stuff to hear. Now, however, if am struggling to keep my eyes open, so will wrap up for now.