When the birds are chirping and the day breaks, this is when I love to explore. Hi there – Terri Froelich here, with Art2Life. I am taking over the vlog this week and I wanted to share a process of mine that many of you ask about. It’s about observation, exploration, and patience.
Take a look…
Along with art, I find photography to be something that feeds my soul. For years, this is what makes me feel alive and inspires my art so I make this a consistent practice. I love finding differences, the small details in a busy scene, noticing how conflicting colors meet each other by accident, how shadows cast a glaze and create a new hue and a new shape, how water reflects, how movement changes what I am seeing, or how architecture angles create negative space. For me, it’s an exercise in composition training and muscle memory – and this helps intuitively create shapes, colors, and details in my work. In a recent painting, I remember creating a shape and then realized it was the carpet detail I had previously photographed. Many people I have worked with seem to get stuck on what shape to paint. My advice is to just take a moment and look around – what do you notice? What shapes do you see? Bring what you notice into your work!
I recently helped with our Art2Life Workshop in Marrakech, Morocco. For Art2Life, it is very important that we find locations and properties that inspire us and our workshop participants. This workshop took place at the beautiful boutique hotel property, Jnane Tamsna, which is the creation of the brilliant visionary, Meryann Loum-Martin. The pictures shown in this vlog are all from her property.
Now that you have had a sneak peek of Jnane Tamsna, be sure to listen to the podcast coming out this Wednesday! While in Marrakech, Nick sat down with Meryanne to talk about her extraordinary journey, her thoughts on curation, and the one thing money can’t buy – but that answer is in the podcast so you are going to have to listen! Click here to subscribe to the Art2Life Podcast so you don’t miss an episode and catch up on past episodes, too!
And for those of you like me, who sometimes get tripped up on color, please make sure to download our super helpful Color Tips PDF. There is so much incredible information in this PDF.
Don’t forget to leave us a comment about your process— what inspires you? Do you use photography? I am so curious to know!
Until next time!
Terri
PS: Find more of my art & photography here!
