I started off this week at MSS by joining a ‘One on One’ zoom meeting between a MSS Teaching Artist, Chloe Russell and one of her Illustration Artists on Monday, February 1st. We opened the video meeting with the Illustrator showing us the work they had created since our last meeting together. Both Chloe and I were stunned by the quantity of incredible work this illustrator had completed. The Illustrator also had some exciting news to share about one of their drawings being selected to be screen-printed and sold on a T-Shirt. The artist was so overjoyed and excited about this news that it was a bit difficult for them to focus on the lesson that Chloe had prepared for that day. This lesson involved creating a greeting card for someone special in the artist’s life. The artist had chosen to do a Birthday card for someone special in their life. To initiate the process of creation for this card, Chloe asked some questions to the artist to get a pool of reference images gathered to later harvest from for inspiration. These questions included things such as: what color should the card be, what imagery did you have in mind? What should the text say? Chloe then compiled these found images into a photoshop file while sharing her screen with me and that MSS Artist. This allowed the Artist to have a place to look to as a blueprint while beginning the sketch on the front of the Birthday Card. During this sketching phase Chloe also gave the Artist the reins to choose the music for ambiance during this Birthday card making. At the end of the meeting. The Artist showed Chloe and I their creation of a purple colored Birthday card with bubbly font wishing ‘Happy Birthday’, with a circular cake in the center that had an ‘86’ candle sticking out of the desert. I’m sure this person that the Illustrator made the card for will absolutely cherish this card!
On Thursday this week, I joined the in-person Artist Group that AJ ran as Zoom guest. I noticed that usually there are about nine artists who join this class, but on Thursday there were only two who showed up. This made a great opportunity to get to spend more individual time with these two Artists. AJ introduced the lesson by defining the subject and then went into a brief presentation that gave an array of examples ranging from Frida Kahlo to Sidney Sherman, to her own phone ‘selfies’ and self-portrait drawing. She asked the Artists if they wanted their reference photographs of themselves to be printed out for them or to be made large on the computer monitor for them to reference from. When evaluating the Artists work AJ and I asked them to explain their work and ask why they chose to represent themselves the way they did. During these conversations, I had a wonderful time getting to know these class members more.