The Summer of Art2Life

Study in Red and Gold © Ann Kinsinger 2023

I’ve written before about how my life has been shifting since my mother died, four and a half years ago now. I’m happy to tell you that I’ve continued down the path of deep change.

I never know how things are going to work out. This last February, my All Things Encaustic Newsletter described a free 5-day Art2Life workshop with Nicholas Wilton, so I thought “ok, sure, I’ll check it out.” I really enjoyed those free lessons – I liked Nick, his lessons, and his approaches to life and art. At the end, he offered the chance to sign up for the 12-week Art2Life Creative Visionary Program for 2023. This is not a cheap program, but his videos where he described the program and what it’s about appealed to me on a deep level – in particular, the way he focuses on each person finding their OWN artist voice and expression. So I went for it.

My only real reservation was around the medium used – acrylic paint. I use acrylic paint in my paper arts – creating collage papers and paper cloth, but I am not a “painter”. But I figured, correctly, that what I would learn around value, design, composition, color, and texture would apply to my other work, especially collage and encaustic.

This post is not really about what that 12-week course was about. Let’s just say that it was like trying to sip from a fire hose, and I definitely got my money’s worth. I have access to all the course materials through next February, and I have already started going back through it all at a slower pace. Because it was a LOT, and absorbing everything is most likely a life goal.

But, even so, I have been painting. Making paintings. And the last couple of those? I actually like. I want to do more. Explore more. There’s a long list of techniques that I haven’t even tried yet. And I keep having visions of binding books with hand-painted covers. And exploring all the things I’m learning about value and color and texture and design in the mediums of collage and encaustic art.

Like all the best things in my life so far, it’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

And because I want to stay connected with this online community and keep learning, I’ve enrolled in the Art2Life Academy. It’s an ongoing program, and us new folks get to start with it next week. I am looking forward to it.

Ghost City © Ann Kinsinger 2023

This post’s artwork are my two favorites of my Art2Life student paintings.