This is what I created.

The idea was to make about eight jigsaw puzzle shaped sections on the page and then use your paints and media and brushes to get the feel of the whole thing. When it came time to critique I was a wee bit late to class and only had the furthest end on either side of the wall to post mine. I put my piece up and realized all of a sudden how completely different mine was from everyone else's.
They had their eight shapes. Each shape a different color with a different media. I had only used the shapes as a guideline. There is the hint of shape... but not so much the shapes that I began with. My teacher started with me. "Tell us about your piece."
I said: Mine doesn't look like anyone else's.
She said: There's nothing wrong with that.
Exactly the thing you should hear in any creative course.

The rule was that we had to use at least three different colors when we mixed. And I came up with some vibrant stuff. During our classwork my teacher came up to remind me of the three color mixing rule. I told her I was following it. "This blue here? I mixed all the blues together and then added a dash of white to brighten it. This red is all the reds mixed together." I suppose it was cheating in a way but I got what I wanted. And besides, I did mix other colors together.
I just needed some of those colors to pop! And pop they did.


My teacher had a great fondness for my 'juicy brushstrokes' like the above. And below. She said my style was akin to Fauvism. I painted 'like a wild beast.' Who was I to argue? For all my years of drawing, putting paint to paper and then to canvas changed my life completely. Suddenly it was more than making something look exactly like whatever it was you were drawing. There was movement! And color! And contrast!
This was a whole new world. And I was never the same.
