Monday, June 17, 2013

Week 2 at Lilla Rogers School

Where should I start? Even though I've only been in Lilla's class for two weeks, I have grown so much, and I am sure my classmates all feel the same way about themselves, too. I spent as much time as I could everyday on my second week assignment, and let me tell you, it was a lot of work. I totally feel like I am back at art school, but I am so happy, and I feel giddy when I work on the assignment. I love Lilla's approach; each week she breaks down the assignment for us so we wouldn't feel overwhelmed. On each Monday we get our mini exercise, and on Wednesday we get our real assignment. But because of Monday's mini exercise, by the time Wednesday comes we'll have enough materials to use to complete our homework. It's genius!

Let me show you what I have done this past week. For week two, Lilla covered the home decor market. On Monday and Tuesday, without knowing what the actual assignment would be, I did bunch of drawings using black India ink with my brush and bamboo dip pen, since our mini exercise was to draw lots of pods.

Studio - Week 2 at Lilla 
School

One reason I did everything in black was because I planned to color them later in Photoshop so I was not too concerned about colors at this point.

3 Flowers Linework Sketch

And another reason is, even though I love conventional artworks, I am never comfortable with brush and paint myself. When I saw my classmates' work-in-progress, I drooled! OH MY! There are so many painters in this class and they post the most gorgeous floral sketches on our Facebook wall (we have a closed Facebook group where we are encouraged to share with everybody our work-in-progress photos and feedback for each other, another reason why I LOVE this class). So, as much as I was admiring all the beautiful watercolor and gauche artworks my classmates did, I wasn't brave enough to do it myself at this point, silly me, right?

On Wednesday we got our actual assignment, and it was to design a collection of floral ceramic plates (2-4 pieces per collection). Using my ink drawings from Monday and Tuesday, as well as some butterflies drawings I did for week 1's assignment, I came up with these three designs:

FLORA_CHANG_BlueBorderFloralPlate_1A_WEEK2.jpg
FLORA_CHANG_YellowBorderFloralPlate_1A_WEEK2
FLORA_CHANG_PinkBorderFloralPlate_1A_WEEK2

I am pretty happy with my collection, though I still wish I could've come up with something more painterly and beautiful like many of my classmates' works. So after I finished my last plate design this afternoon, with a 50% off coupon in my hand (a surprise gift that showed up in my email today), I headed to Michaels and got myself some watercolors. I went back home and started to lay down colors on paper, without worrying too much, just played, layers after layers. It was really relaxing, actually! I then scanned the watercolors into Photoshop and combined them with my ink drawings from week 1 & 2, and this little piece just sort of happened on its own; it was like magic...


Watercolor Flowers

I guess I don't have to be so afraid of paint after all. A lesson learned and an unexpected mini break-through, at the end of week two. :) 

10 comments:

Nicole Underwood Gonzalez said...

Oh my goodness, these are so beautiful!! I LOVE the plates!! and that soft painterly image at the bottom is divine!!

Ellyn said...

if I saw those plates in a store they would go home with me! They look like something you would buy at Anthropologie. Lovely!

Andria said...

Your work is beautiful! I just "discovered" you after purchasing Creative Lettering yesterday, and loving your section of the book. The borders on your plates are all beautiful, I love the colors of plate #1 best, and my favorite design in the middle is the last one. They are all wonderful, though! And I agree with Ellyn, above, that they look like something from Anthropologie (one of my favorite stores!).

doris & fred said...

Oh my goodness, totally gorgeous work! Argh i wish i could do LIlla's course! It sounds so wonderful.

Flora Chang said...

Thank you so much for your kind words, girls! Hope you are all enjoy an wonderful day!:)

Autumn Hathaway said...

I saw this on Pinterest and had the same feeling about your art work like you did about the other artist. Nice job. Thanks for the post.

Samantha Lewis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Samantha Lewis said...

Those plates are incredible.

خدمات منزلية said...

شركة تنظيف بابها

شركة رواد الحرمين said...


شركه تنظيف منازل بالقطيف

شركه تنظيف منازل بالجبيل

للقلق لأن شركة عزل أسطح تقدم لعملائها الكرام في كافة أنحاء المملكة العربية السعودية .
افضل شركة عزل أسطح

شركه تنظيف مكيفات بالرياض
شركه عزل فوم بالدمام

شركه عزل اسطح بالدمام

شركه عزل فوم بالقطيف

شركه عزل فوم بالاحساء

شركه عزل فوم بالجبيل