Summer of colour 1

When I remember my school art lessons the thing that first springs to mind is that our art room was at the top of the East block of classrooms. Five floors up. So for many of my art lessons I was out of breath for the first five minutes after running up the stairs after the previous lesson elsewhere in the school.  I remember one lesson in particular which was immediately after us all having our BCG inoculations.   I remember sitting in a circle with our easels, drawing some still life in the centre of the classroom. My friend Nicky wanted to get my attention so she punched me on the arm.  The same arm that had just had an injection in it – ouch!  So you see although I have memories of art lessons, they don’t really involve drawing or painting, in fact they seem to involve pain of one type or another!  You won't be surprise to hear that when we had to choose our O level options at the beginning of the 4th year, art did not appear on my list.

I would love to be good at drawing. My husband is, and can easily sketch something.  I see him pick up a sketch pad and a pencil and he is able to capture a scene.  But for me, it just doesn’t happen. So when I decided to join in with the Summer of Colour, it never once crossed my mind to do something that involved drawing.  My first thought was to do something that involved fabric.  But then I decided it was time to step out of my comfort zone; have a go at something different.  I felt sure that maybe the nature of the project would find me if I just opened my mind.

Fast forward to me checking Instagram.  I see several pictures from Deb at PaperTurtle drawing mandalas.  They are beautiful, and she sure manages to draw a lot of them!  So I decided to give it a try and guess what?  I found it incredibly relaxing.  I was really absorbed in the task and whilst the end result was definitely not to Deb Turtle's standard, I was quietly pleased with it.  You can see where the ‘Eureka’ moment is coming from can’t you?  So yes, my Summer of Colour will be done via mandalas.  It’s a simple way to interpret the colour schemes and also pushing me to try something new.  Who knows, by the end of it I may be able to draw a straight line with a ruler and a circle with a compass (at the moment, both of these things are causing me grief!)

The first choice was blue + blue + green.  And this is what I have made ...

 

I know it's really simple and that when I check out what other people have done I'm going to feel like I should have done something more dramatic and arty but I really enjoyed doing it so I'm going to stick with my plan.

 

Linking up with Summer of Colour here