An Art Class (But Technically Not): Post for 9/28

When I heard about this assignment I was pretty excited. I love painting and art and creativity. I like to read a book or listen to a song and have images come to mind. Sometimes they are entire pictures. Other times they are just colors and patterns. When I read Joel it was difficult not to walk away with some vivid imagery. In fact, my hardest challenge was to pick what to paint from all of my many options. I ended up taking information from various parts of Joel and cramming it all into one picture. I used the passage on the locust, "What the gnawing locust has left.... the stripping locust has eaten". Part of Joel talked about fire, "For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness and the flame has burned up all the trees of the field". The book also mentioned, "The sun and moon grow dark". I just imagined this barren wasteland. No leaves on trees or grass. A tree on fire. Darkness. Locusts flying all around and landing on the plants to eat them. Not a pretty image.

When we got to class Professor Corrigan told us that the assignment was not intended for those who could actually paint. I thought, "Aw man! That was why I was going to like this assignment!". Then he mentioned how much time we had to paint. Thirty to forty minutes. I kept thinking how I wouldn't have enough time to paint what I wanted. I started to over think the assignment. I had to tell myself to stop and think about what I wanted to do. I told myself not to worry about whether or not I would finish the picture. I did, but that is beside the point. The point is I had to slow down and think about what I was doing and why. Why each part was important. I made myself not fix the many mistakes I made or I would have been there much longer. Actually, I might still be working on it because I would always be seeing something else that I could fix. Instead of focusing on the art involved in the assignment I started to focus on the literature part.