rock painting

[spacefem]

last year my rock painting group met up in a park on a hot july day for a National Paint A Rock Hide A Rock Day. It was nice to see facebook group enthusiasts in person, but I found the event itself to be a little weird. It was started by a random facebook person in some other city, sure, and the group wanted to join up, but the group for the event was smaller than our group so really, we were doing them a publicity favor.

for this day we were asked to paint BLUE ROCKS WITH RED HEARTS on them, and DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE PLAN. They had this mantra that rock painting should be simple enough for even kids to get into. Paint as many BLUE ROCKS WITH RED HEARTS as we could and get a big photo and then hide them out in the world to uplift people like rock painters do.

Once we'd committed to the event I learned that they might even remove a photo if the rock had anything fancy about it - lace edges, doodles in the heart, anything that might intimidate a newbie and make them feel inferior. All rocks must be the same so that new rock painters know that they can do it too.

So I did it, painted 10-15 BLUE ROCKS WITH RED HEARTS but then I started losing my mind out of sheer boredom.

And I decided I hated the "philosophy" that we should bring our art down to the lowest common denominator to be nice and encourage each other. Look - I'm no artist. my rock painting is either quite simple, or laughingly bad. There are real artists in my rock painting group, with 15000 people there are examples of amazing things I can never do. I LOVE them! I don't feel bad about myself, I don't feel inferior. I love the diversity, the inspiration, the fact that all different levels and colors can be part of the same group.

I'm a group admin so I wonder if I should express my thoughts and tell my group that we should have our own official day, or start a different holiday, and just pretend like we haven't noticed this BLUE ROCK RED HEART thing because it's BS. nothing to see here! Then take a big group photo with all our rocks doing all the things. call it "WE'RE AWESOME" day, paint whatever we want, celebrate all our colors and bust out of the uniforms?

Or I could quit being picky and just be supportive of somebody else's idea.

Comments

[spiffikins]

Honestly I feel like these constraints of "blue rock,red heart" will actually make more people feel "inferior", *because* all the rocks are supposed to be the same - so it will be easier to compare your rock to someone else's rock and there are going to be people who have put in fabulous gradients with smooth blending of their blue background, and a red heart with highlights and shading and drop shadow and the whole thing - and they will look at their blue rock with a red heart and go "mine doesn't look like THAT"

People are going to marvel at others' skill - and hopefully as you said - use it as inspiration - and not feel bad about their own art. There is always a tiny corner of a person that compares what they have produced to what other people have done, and finds something lacking. And I think that forcing everyone to do the exact same thing - will only make that more likely, not less?

[sherlockishere]

Seriously? I think you should voice your thoughts, b/c I'd bet everyone else is bored, too!

[oracne]

This.

[oracne]

It shouldn't be boring! Your idea is a good one.

[ravena_kade]

Wow, this is completely different from other art pages i have been on.

Many I have been on are for the absolute nervous beginner and people who post there are 20 year professional artists.

I think you should let them know how you feel. People should be allowed to express themselves.

[greghousesgf]

I remember a book that I read when I was a kid about a family and one point that I found very odd was part of the book was about the school that most of the kids in this family went to, and the art class in that school consisted ENTIRELY of everyone in class drawing nothing but a leaf or an apple, over and over and over, and even as a kid I thought that was a very weird and unimaginative way to run an art class.

[elusivek]

If it has to be so uniform, is there a required Pantone Color for the blue, and which red tone for the hearts, and do the hearts need a black outline around them……

[siglinde999]

I would totally support diversity. Do they think kids won’t want to aim for something more interesting? Will they remove the rock of a dedicated four-year old who deviated from the plan?

[dandylover1]

Definitely go against them. The idea is stupid, at best. I have no time for this modern nonsense of dumbing down everything to make certain people feel happy. If seeing great work makes them think they can't do it, knowing that they just started and need to learn the craft, the problem lies with them, not the artists. No one can learn a complicated skill in a single day, except an absolute genius, and even they still learn new things as they go.

[lantairvlea]

As someone with an Art Education background the idea of insisting everyone paint the SAME EXACT THING is absolutely abhorrent. Art is about finding your own "voice" and expression, not making sure no one could possibly feel bad about being different because everyone is the same...