A Challenge for your Inner Critic - and a giveaway

I do this exercise as a warm-up in some of my longer workshops, and also in Art Therapy For Your Inner Critic.  It is fun, more challenging than you would think, and it engages your Inner Critic in a way that is actually helpful rather than discouraging. I use this approach in my Art of the Postcard class too, but it's a little different.

Here is how it goes:

Create a piece (or better yet, a series of pieces) in which each quadrant is distinctly different from the others.  Do not simply divide the substrate into four equal parts and make separate compositions.  It has to be one composition, but if you were to divide it in four, the pieces would NOT look like they were cut from the same piece.   Use paint, collage, drawing, stamping, or any other technique.

You can see two examples in the second half of this post.  And here are a few more:

Acrylic paint, watercolor crayon, graphite, collage on 10"x11" printmaking paper

Acrylic paint, Pitt pen, watercolor crayon, graphite on 10"x11" printmaking paper

Acrylic paint, graphite, watercolor crayon, collage on 10"x11" printmaking paper.  For links to my materials see "My Favorite Materials" in the right margin of this blog.

E-mail me your examples (scan or photograph, send jpgs) and I will post a selection.  Tell me what challenges you faced, if you made any discoveries, or if it was simply fun and easy.  I will choose a winner, who will receive a set of Blick Studio Acrylics.  These are good student-quality paints, much much better than craft paints, and much less expensive than professional quality paints. 

Have fun, and good luck!  I will post a winner on Friday, August 22, so don't hesitate.  Take out your art materials and get to work.