Automatic Drawing Prompts For You -see earlier blog post on Automatic Drawing

Look at these drawing prompts. If a concept resonates with you, begin sketching.

These art prompts are intended to help break a creative block. Looking at a list of random things to draw can help disrupt your mind and get ideas flowing.

  • A black cat is staring out the window at birds in the yard. The cat's tail is slowly flicking back and forth.
    What is she looking at...

  • A lion, walking through tall grass.

  • A sheep dog is herding sheep on a hilly field in a foggy landscape.

  • Imagine a rocky coastline during a winter storm, waves battering the shore, wind whipping the water into foam.

Create a pattern in your mark making. Remember to turn your surface 180-degrees periodically and continue working. Place a few drops of ink or paint on your surface, squirt water and let drip. Add values. Use alternate materials like chalk or oil pastel. Create symbolism within your work.

Start a music playlist. Listen to music as you create.

Using Symbolism:

  • Add some vintage ephemera to your work.

  • Remove a portion of your work. Paint over it.

  • Scratch into the work with a tool.

  • Do you have a symbol that you identify with? Add it.

  • Add droplets of ink.

  • Turn your surface 180-degrees.

  • Push back parts of the work by smudging.

  • Add words to your surface.

  • Remove one or more elements.

  • Add marks of any kind.

  • Add images (photos, photocopies, magazine cut-outs)

  • Fill areas using with patterns.

  • Add paint, block out areas with gesso.

  • Add ink using gel pens.

  • Add writing.

Marta Cortese

Mandy Pattullo Textile Artist

Unknown

https://samboughton.co.uk/sketchbooks

Jiří Anderle（Czech, b.1936） Vanitas III 1983 Drypoint, Print, Soft Ground Etching

Look at the Anderle fully fleshed out drawing as a soft - ground etching above. How may this etching have started as a sketch?

Prompt: Start a sketchbook reserved exclusively for your automatic drawings. Pick one or two and use your sketches as a basis for more developed work.



UPDATE - NEW ONLINE CLASS - UPDATE

The Last Days of Summer

An Online Studio 3-Week Mini Class with Carolyn

August 2, 9, 16 (Tuesdays at 5pm for 1.5 hours)

New Class with A New Approach

I recently started working along during class. Students can now see in real time how I approach the lesson.

Journey with me!

Learn from anywhere!

Let’s journey on a Creative VISION QUEST!

  • what is your visual language?

  • do you want a more creative life?

  • how do you find your mojo?

Let's figure it out together!

  • Writing, vision quest journaling, guided imagery, discussion, fun prompts, and various techniques will activate your imagination. Through these practices your inner creativity will become enriched while learning how to give power to your work.

Keep your mind open and activate your creativity. Make friends, too!!

Tuesdays 5pm 1.5 hours

On ZOOM

Starts August 2 for 3 weeks $45.00

Use:  markers, gel pens, pencils, paint, printmaking,

paper, cardboard, canvas, boards, or journal - you decide.

NEVER MISS A CLASS

Can' t make it in person?

Every session is recorded.

Follow along at your convenience.

Easy pay on VENMO or by Check. Just email and let me know that you want to attend, and I will send you easy payment information. $45.00 for all three sessions.

Register by Email

What's My Line?

In the 1950’s show What’s My Line four panelists determined guests' occupations — and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, determined their identity — by asking questions that could only be answered using "yes" or "no." Imagine you are a guest on What’s My Line. What questions could the panelists ask, what would you ask yourself? What would your answers be? How many questions would it take to determine who you are and what your narrative is?

Narrative Art & Storytelling

Edouard Manet

Luncheon on the Grass

1863

Oil on Canvas 84x106

Art tells stories. It is as simple as that! From the caves of Lascaux to Pompeii, the Dutch painters, and Caravaggio to our contemporary period, art historically tells stories. And not just through painting. Think of the stained-glass windows of churches with religious scenes depicted. Visual narration has often been the premiere genre in art along with religious, mythological, literary, historical, or allegorical methods.

Allegory in art is an “instance” in a story that is visually told.

Let’s look at this painting by Manet. Ask yourself: what story does Manet’s painting tell us?

Prompt: Write a corresponding story in two paragraphs telling us what the subjects are doing, thinking, feeling, planning? Why is the woman in the forefront unclothed? Why are the men clothed? What is the woman in the background doing? How did Manet use foreground, middle ground and background to tell the story?

David Salle makes large-scale paintings that arrange historical and pop cultural references into enigmatic compositions. Salle has famously invoked 19th-century paintings. His paintings and prints comprise what appear to be randomly juxtaposed and multilayered images, or images placed on top of one another with deliberately illogical techniques, in which he combines original and appropriated imagery. Imagery he uses includes items from popular culture.

At a 2005 lecture, Salle said:

When I came to New York in the 70s, it was common not to expect to be able to live from your art. I had very little idea about galleries or the business side of the art world. It all seemed pretty distant. When people started paying attention to my work, it seemed so unlikely that somehow it wasn't so remarkable. I made my work for a small audience of friends, other artists mostly, and that has not really changed. At the same time, having shows is a way of seeing if the work resonates with anyone else. Having that response, something coming back to you from the way the work is received in the world, can be important for your development as an artist. But you have to take it with healthy skepticism... I still spend most days in my studio, alone, and whatever happens flows from that.

David Salle
Byron's Reference to Wellington, 1987

Tina Barney

Intimate Life Photography

After looking at some of the art above, ask yourself: What is my story? What story can I tell through my art? Could you tell your story in the narrative format creating or using just one “scene”?

Prompt: What story would you like to tell? Can you tell a story using just one scene/composition?

Start by keeping a journal. What is your journal’s title?

Jot down ideas, doodle, make sketches showing how you might tell stories in the one-picture format.

Need Materials?

Click the Amazon link above and see my recommendations for a variety of products. Check back regularly for new product recommendations and reviews.




What do cheese and pickle sandwiches and the beach have to do with making art?

In my last blog post I related a story from my childhood. (See Beach Fun Means Cheese & Pickle Sandwiches 1960's Style! ) from June 29, 2022.

First, let’s define narrative.

Storytelling always involves the presentation of a story—a narrative.

The narrative can be written or visual. Let’s start by telling a written narrative story that we can develop into a visual narrative.

A visual narrative is a type of story that is told primarily or entirely through visual media, such as photographs, illustrations, or video. There are no restrictions on the types of narratives that can be made in a visual manner — a visual narrative can be fiction or nonfiction of any genre.

Narrative Art tells a story. It uses the power of the visual image to ignite imaginations, evoke emotions and capture the attention of the viewer.

Taken while painting plein air on Skaket Beach, The Cape-October 2018

1960’s Family on the Beach



First Create a Written Personal Narrative

Here is a photograph of a family on a beach for inspiration. How can you create your own visual narrative story? This image might fall under the category of a special trip or holiday.

Write a brief outline telling your (their) story. Choose a prompt from the following list or use your own idea! Your story should be related to a personal experience. You will be creating an artwork based on your story after you have finished writing.

Consider the following questions:

● What is the setting?

● What emotions are felt or expressed in your story?

● What did you learn from the experience?

● What made this story important or special to you?

Story Prompts:

● A challenge you faced

● A personal achievement

● A conflict you experienced

● An adventure you had

● A special trip or vacation

● A big change in your life


My story will be about (title):______________________________________________


You now are beginning to create your own narrative story. By definition, narrative art is the type of visual art that tells stories. How can you tell your story in a visual narrative?

What is AGENCY: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines agency as “ the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power; a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved ”. Art is imbued with agency, or at least an ability to evoke some sort of change or response in the viewer.

How could the below image have been inspired? In the next blog post we will explore agency and how some artists go about creating narrative art.

David Bowers, “Listen,” 24 x 18, oil on panel









Beach Fun Means Cheese & Pickle Sandwiches 1960's Style!

What do cheese and pickle sandwiches and the beach have to do with making art?

Installment #1

Growing up in close proximity to the Jersey shore in the 60’s meant beach picnics with our extended family. My dad would pack us all in our 1963 VW bug (three kids and two parents) and we would drive sans air-conditioning to Longport, NJ, where we would meet up with his sister’s family. Total head count was 12 or more people altogether. Things weren’t fancy then, like they are now. There were no super highways. The route we took was through the South Jersey farms and farm stands along 2-lane roads. We always stopped to buy bags (usually Jersey peaches) of fruit for the family. Once we got to the beach, which seemed like forever to us kids, Dad parked the beetle to the side of road at the designated meeting area and we disembarked with no need for beach tags or big coolers. Small cottages dotted the sand roads leading to the beach.

Between my mom and my aunt, lunches had been prepacked. My aunt’s specialty was American or Cheddar cheese sandwiches with mustard (the yellow kind) and pickles on white bread. This was before plastic zip lock bags. The sandwiches were wrapped in brown paper. My Uncle always made Snickerdoodle cookies. I do not remember fancy beverages. It was always water that my dad brought in a metal canteen with a plaid cover. There is an art to not letting your lips touch the spout when sharing a canteen. Big green army blankets were spread out on the sand. Pails, shovels, sifters, and flotation devices were carried by us kids. We all immediately rushed into the ocean jumping waves and carrying on.

My dad’s beach outfit was his red Temple University Varsity jacket and swimming trunks that must have been from 1950. He was a really strong swimmer. (I recall him swimming in pre-hurricane waters in 1963 in Wildwood. My mothers’ relatives owned a big hotel called the Aztec. My mom and I watched him swim out while on the beach a tiki hut roof blew off. He was a consummate daredevil jock. I remember my mother being very worried.)

Once it was deemed to be lunchtime, we were called in. First the cheese and pickle sandwiches were handed around. By this time, which was a couple of hours in to it, the cheese had begun to melt and not necessarily in a good way. Wonder White bread and cheese subjected to the sun is interesting. The pickles added an extra bit of mushiness. If that wasn’t enough, and as you probably know if you have ever tried to eat anything on the beach, sand worked its way into every bite. This sounds really awful, right? Eating was further complicated because inevitably we were all forced to eat while under makeshift tents made out of towels and blankets as gulls would very quickly set upon us. I recall at least once a kid having his or her sandwich taken by the naughty dive-bombers. If you have ever had this happen to you, you know exactly how frightening it is. I’m sure it was quite a sight to see a dozen humans huddled under cover scared and hiding from a flock of birds trying to peck their way in to take our mushy sandwiches.

The thing is this: I remember those sandwiches, in all their mushy grittiness as the best sandwiches ever. I’m not sure if it was that we had such fun times with all the cousins together, the comfort of being a little kid with nothing to do but play, being surrounded by family, the sea air, the tiredness that you get from being in the ocean, or that memories shift and the sweetness of a time when things were less complicated takes over. Sometimes, I make a cheese and pickle sandwich just to recall those now long ago ‘60s: a decade where people felt free.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Beach Fun Means Cheese & Pickle Sandwiches and see how I connect this story with creating art and giving agency to your narrative.

© 2022 Carolyn DiFiori Hopkins. All rights reserved


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