As I’ve mentioned previously, I work as a sub at Studio 700, an art center for adults with disabilities, where I’m lucky to instruct or work with truly talented artists. One such artist, named Laura, works with construction paper and recently asked me what she should work on for the day. I suggested she create a self-portrait using non-traditional colors, i.e., to not use pink for her skin and brown for her hair, etc. She told me she prefers to work with animals and then created this amazing lion:
It reminds me of Henri Rousseau’s jungle paintings, such as “Surprise!”
Another student in the same class, Josh Johnsen, created this drawing while waiting for a computer. It was very offhand for him—I think he intended to throw it away—but I found in it a sense of power and mystery one often finds in more “primitive” drawings:
It actually reminds me of a recurring dream I have that seems to be a mix Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” series and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, where a sweaty, heavily-muscled red-skinned warrior battles his way through frightening alien landscapes. So, I decided to color Josh’s piece, and here is the result:
[...] student Laura from Studio 700 created this beautiful three-dimensional bunny out of construction paper today, all [...]