Hello. I'd like to welcome you to this visual art online course experience. My name is Cea. I am your mentor and I am the voice behind this symbol,, that will be showing up many many times throughout the course.

Now, I’ve set this course up so that you get all the background skills, information and processes that you need in order to begin to make art that is skillful and intelligent. You get background information on art history, art making, on skills and techniques, and how to begin to decode and understand art. Art that you might run into in the subway walls, that you might run into in magazines, in advertising-- even possibly in galleries, with actual formal art.

So all these skills are tools for you to use and they will help you make art, but the key to making powerful art, art that will move people, is to be able to learn the last skill which is to go inside and make contact with what holds real meaning for you.

So you might be saying, “Well that sounds great, but what if I don’t know how to do that?” Or you might be sitting at your computer one day and saying, “I’m not inspired, I’m in a bad mood, I don’t have any ideas.” And what I want to offer you is assurance that this is nothing new, artists and people who do creative projects often run into what are called creative blocks.

One of the things that I’ve done is taken on the words of wisdom of Bono, lead singer and songwriter in the band U2, and he says, “Well, when I’m feeling lousy, when I wake up in a funk and I don’t feel like writing—I write about that! I write about how lousy it feels to be out of my groove.”

And so, when I’ve actually done that in my own work, it’s kind of turned into this—it’s like a blues singer. I say, “Oh my boyfriend run away, my car’s broken down, someone stole my last 5 bucks & my Chihuahua just bit me-- I’m singing the blues.

So, no matter what you’re feeling, if you’re feeling lousy, write about that, if you’re feeling absolutely exuberant, write about that, if you’re feeling angry, write about that. And pretty soon, because you’re expressing yourself, you’re turning that energy into something positive—you’re flipping it over. The key piece is to write about what you’re actually feeling, because once you line up what you’re actually feeling with all your tools for making good art, you’re going to have the know-how and the energy to create strong art.

The perk that goes along with that is that, no matter how rotton you feel, you start to feel better.

As you can see with Bono’s work, he’s created work that has blown people away, that’s powerful and passionate. And that (process) is how it becomes excellent. You can create something as powerful as that is if you connect with something that holds real meaning for yourself—and begin to create from that place.

So, that’s really my focus, and I’ll be encouraging you with simple straightforward exercises for working up ideas and images. All you really need to do to access that potentially powerful visual voice that you have within you is to just relax and bring your full self into the exercises. Just begin to notice what bubbles up when you stay focused with that. And as your mentor, I’ll be here with you along the way.

I just want to say that I am thoroughly looking forward to the fun, the gritty, the passionate, profound art that will be coming from your head and your hands and your heart.

Cea