The art department professors at Marywood are constantly challenging their students to break away from their comfort zone and try something different with new mediums and new techniques.

Currently, I am loving the challenge that my painting II professor, Laura Alexander has presented us with. She has created a still life with adequate lighting in the center of our room and before we could even look or talk about the objects in front of us, we had to use our acrylics and a few sheets of printer paper and create five different colors ranging from light to dark tones.

Following, we used a ruler to create five guiding composition lines just to help proportion what we were working on. And then, with a pair of scissors rather than a paint brush, we cut our five colors into different shapes and sizes and pasted them with acrylic matte medium (as you would in a collage) and began to layer our painting with blocks of color.

This exercise is so interesting and engaging… it truly challenges the artist to focus on light and shadow and the relationship of space and shape in order to create something that could never be similar to the person standing next to you, looking at the exact same still life.