Art is a process.

... It is a creative outlet that expresses where words may fail. It's something that has always reverberated to me since I was a kid. I would spend hours on a single drawing. The Greek mythology project in 8th Grade English? I spent three nights on drawing Aphrodite and Hera just for the cover of this simple assignment. It wasn't even in color. It was all contour lines!

But my images spoke louder than my words; I always felt like I could communicate better/more through them. If you have had a session with me, you probably picked up that I sometimes stumble over my words when trying to give instructions on posing or angles. I get caught up in the artistic process, and it leaves me speechless. So I show by physically moving an arm or tilting a chin.

Around the same time last year, I challenged my art students to think about the process of doing a recreation of a masterpiece with oil pastels. So I did the project with them, and I chose John Singer Sargent's Study of a Spanish Dancer. They didn't believe me at first that you can recreate a masterpiece with less than 5 colors. As you can see in the following images, I set out to remove their disbelief! (Pardon the quality of images and the distortion in angles! It does make the dancer look rather stumpy!)


"Imitation is the best form of flattery."


You have to have a good foundation before building.


Build slowly.


Things change as you create. Don't be afraid to go over your mistakes.


Beauty is in the details.


A finished structure still has work; there is no such thing as perfection.


To work with what you're given in limited materials can be frustrating, but the results of hard work are always worth it.


You don't need the same materials as the master to create.


Art not displayed is a voice with laryngitis.


Things are forever changing and forever growing. It's about that time of year where I choose another non-photography related project to do... and I have absolutely no idea what that process will be.

- Chelsea :)