He’s not the most beautiful piece of art I have ever done but he was fun and I highly recommend you try a project like this to stretch your creativity. I did the piece live as part of a worship service yesterday at the Foundry Church in Wallingford, PA. Usually when I paint live, I have planned and practiced, sketched and I have a pretty good idea how quickly I can finish the piece and how it syncs up with my message. This was different. This was art without a net.
You see, I was asked speak on the topic of Freedom to Fail and so rather than illustrate that topic with the subject matter of the piece, I decided to illustrate it by making a piece where failure was a distinct possibility. Before the start of the service, I asked five people come forward and make a mark on the canvas. I then made a point of using all their marks as part of the painting. Whatever they gave me had to be used, to make the finished piece. I had the length of about three or four worship songs to complete the piece. I think the results were fairly satisfactory.
Of course one wise acre, decided to take my request literally and write the word MARK on the canvas (I asked them to make a “mark, get it?) I wasn’t exactly sure where to go with that so I made it a word balloon. I ended up calling the painting Mark’s Boss. It was quite a bit of fun, and I believe it brought my message home.
You can do a project like this on your own. If you’re not in a live painting environment, sit down with a friend or two or five and make parks on each other’s canvasses, then give yourselves a limited amount of time to finish the project. This project will stretch you creatively and it’s also a lot of fun. Try it for yourself.
AMOKArts 