dianne smith design
ISO_ART
As we are having to socially distance and/or self isolate, these exercises are designed to assist you to reflect, undertake a creative moment and/or just fill in some time working with various media. Each can take you 5 minutes to 30 minutes but feel free to take as long as you have for those you are enjoying or you find useful for how you are feeling.
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JOIN IN and enjoy the activities day by day !
You may like to keep a visual diary and/or a digital photographic record of your activities and reflections.
FEEL FREE to send me your work and I can add the image to this page. This can be added anonymously.
ISO_ART #6: CHANGING CONTEXTS
We are now starting to come out of lock-down so this exercise will enable you to explore how you are feeling about this current shift.
Take a long piece of paper and some pastels (or pencils, paint, if you don't have pastels).
1. Focus on how you have experienced the last one to two months you have spent in lock-down or isolation.
2. Commencing on the left hand end of the sheet, using three colours, capture your feelings when you first were
staying home.
3. Then capture how you were feeling during the next period -- use three colours (same or different).
Decide where this is located beside, above, below or over the first image.
4. Now focus on the last week and repeat the activity.
5. Finally, focus on your response to the coming out phase that is happening now or in the coming weeks. Using as many colours as you like depict how you are feelingon the sheet where you feel is the most appropriate.
Once you have finished hold or pin the page up. What do you notice?
This emotional narrative depicts your journey. Are you curious or surprised about what the image capture?
ISO_ART#7: MEDITATING DIFFERENCE
As WAand the rest of Australia opens up to work and play, this ISO_ART activity is the last for the short term. If you have been following along and would like further activities please contact me. Also, if you need support and feel I can assist, please email or text me to arrange a time to discuss in more depth.
This activity is to focus on you and your desires re moving into your slightly altered world.
1. Find a relaxing or quiet place to sit on your own.
2. Breathe slowly and close your eyes.
3. Move your focus through your body from your feet and your connection to the earth.
4. Gentle move your focus up through your body to your heart-centre.
5. Once there, focus on light, heat or other feelings moving outward from the heart out into the world (near you or beyond).
6. Allow yourself to intuit or imagine the nature of the connection or thread; What is it's nature? (colour, texture, opacity, rhythm, density, etc).
Now take an art medium which feels suitable and create an image on a larger sheet of paper that reflects that connection and where it is flowing. Don't try to create the perfect image - let it develop as you work with it.
Once you have completed it, hang it up somewhere and focus on what you notice in the image. Imagine it is the first time you have seen it. Note down your observations.
Are you surprised or curious? or Can you see something familar or clear in it?
REFLECTION: In what way could you build on this experience? Consider your potential next step.
ISO_ART #5: TAKING A MOMENT
Today take a moment to sit somewhere that makes you feel good. In the garden, on the back step with a cup of tea, at the window, in a favourite chair, in the kitchen, for example.
1. Take with you a note book and a pencil and/or pen.
2. Slow down and really look around you. What can you see, smell, hear, feel? Take time to really focus on each of these aspects.
3. What is around you? Are there any birds, insects, plants or objects? Are there any light patterns, wind
motions, unusual sounds, etc that you notice.
Write a few words that capture what you notice; how you feel; or anything else that comes to mind.
1. Now write a paragraph , a poem, a song, or simply a flow of words that capture this experience.
It is great if you can just let the words flow without too much thought; rather use 'free-flow' thought.
You can always go back and alter anything/add to it if something needs changing.
2. In your notebook (or on your page) you can also sketch something that complements your words.
If you are uncomfortable you can always trace something around you (like a leaf or a light pattern)
or you could do a rubbing i.e. take a pencil and colour back and forth while the piece of paper is pressed
over an object. You could also use materials around you (kitchen ingredients, stick with mud, etc).
Reflect on this moment and what taking time to focus on your surroundings meant/ could mean for you.
ISO_ART #4: LAYERED STORIES
You will need glue and fabric (note you can use old teatowels, pillowcases, etc if you don't have any spare material around.)
1. Cut, rip or unravel the material to create a number of pieces of various sizes.
2. Relax your mind (close your eyes and breath deeply if you need some help); and let your intuition guide you.
3. Start to layer one piece over the other. Glue as you go when the position seems correct. Don't think too much, just place where it feels OK.
4. Once it seems finished, using
a. a needle and thread stich around the core shapes that you are drawn to
b. textas or pens outline the core shapes
c. use stitching or linework with the pens/textas
5. Hold the completed work up once dry. Pin on the wall, frame or place in your visual diary.
Reflection:
What do you notice in the layers? as a whole? does it remind you of anything?
Name the finished piece and record in your visual diary or digital photo file.
ISO_ART #3: MEMORY BOX
Have you a place to gather all your precious memories? This exercise leads you through steps to create a Memory Box. Place it somewhere where you can look at it when you wish to make connections to what has occurred in your past. Note you can use WORDS, IMAGES and/or other SYMBOLS such as objects that remind you of a person, an event, a place, etc.
1. Imagine what a precious place feels and looks like. Focus on the key attributes that it would need to have -- for example: how big? colour? texture? natural? decorated? opaque or transparent? needs to lock , has a lid, folds open?
2. Find a container/vessel that you would like to decorate -- a cardboard box, a tin, a jar or anything you are drawn to.
3. Using paint, textas, images from magazines that are stuck onto the surfaces, patterns that you draw, ribbon, thread, string, fabric, or anything else you can find in your house decorate your vessel in any way that feels right for you. You can change it as you go -- add more, take things away.
4. Look at the box (or vessel) from all sides . What are the similarities and differences? Do the sides tell a story? Does it have a particular feeling or identity?
5. Let the membory box dry and place somewhere that you can see it easily.
6. Once finished and dry start to gather things to place into your memory box. Do you have photos, notes, letters, objects that carry special connections for you. Consider making additional things to add -- write a description, create a drawing, write a poem, collect things from your home that act as triggers to memories for you.
This process may take some time as you add and remove items, which are precious for you at this time, their preciousness changes, you now wish to let go, ...etc
Reflect in your visual diary or digitally record your work. Consider the process of making as well as the memory 'box' and its contents.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
ISO_ART #2: HANDS for LIFE
1. Using pencil or fine pen draw three images of your hand -- one of your fist, one of your hand cupped with the fingers up, and one of your hand open with the fingers extended. Use a seperate piece of paper for each. (Note if you are nervous about drawing your hand you can trace the outline first and then draw in some detail later. This way you can get started .)
2. Once you have finished the images use coloured pencils, pastels or textas to add the elements in your life (or part of it). You may wish to also use text/words or stick-on objects or images.
In the fist add those that you wish to hang on (that are precious or have deep meaning for you)
In the cupped hand place those things that you would like to care for or nuture. Maybe they are things you wish to keep now but realise you will let them go soon.
In the open hand represent the things you wish to share, to give away or to let go.
3. Pin up the three works you have created or lay them out in front of you. Are you surprised with some of your choices re what to hang on to, to care for or to let go? Would you change anything?
Reflect in your visual diary or digitally record your work.
ISO_ART #1 : POSITIVE ME
1. Select ONE positive aspect of yourself (eg. personality trait, emotional characteristic, interest or talent, ... or other). 2. With that aspect in mind, select something from nature i.e. from your garden, a balcony, a pot plant, a natural element in the view out your window, that you you connect to or are drawn to.
3. Using this element as a stimulus, create a small scuplture that captures the nature of that positive aspect of yourself. Use any materials that you have that seem suitable including the natural element you have chosen plus scissors, string, cotton, tape, staples, paper, and other media such as paint, pastels, and the like.
Take time to notice the characteristics of your creation. Look at it from various directions.
Reflect on what it may be inform you about yourself that you had not necessarily thought about.
And those you were aware of.
Capture the piece and the reflections in your visual or digital diary.
Did you enjoy the process of making the piece?