Fresh Starts: Surefire Ways to Spark Creative Work
A Workshop with Thea Kovac
Fee: $75/ $65 members
Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. To register click here. You will receive additional information and a supply list once you register.
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case. ― Chuck Close
It’s been awhile since you have made any art.
You seek a new direction in your creative work.
You are ready to try art-making for the first time.
You spend a lot of time helping others make art.
You are curious about creative process.
Experience specific methods designed to renew your artistic efforts. The emphasis will be on simple, playful hands-on exercises that Thea uses in her own artistic practice and in her classes to jumpstart drawings and paintings. Also included will be suggestions on how to make room for creative work in busy lives, research-based ideas on how the entire human brain contributes to creativity, and ways to shift consciousness to reach the state of “flow.”
No artistic experience required. Visual artists, writers, performers, and anyone interested in creativity will benefit from this workshop. Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for the outdoors—we’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres.
About Thea Kovac
Thea Kovac, visual artist, art instructor, and private art coach, calls her artistic practice The Lost Playground Studio. She has taught watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and drawing courses in Continuing Education Departments at several area colleges and universities including MIAD, UWM, Cardinal Stritch, Carroll, and Alverno.
She has led creative process workshops in many Wisconsin settings, such as the Weidner Center at UW- Green Bay, Woodland Pattern Book Center, the Girl Scout CyberCamp at Alverno College, and Riveredge Nature Center. She has held Artist Residencies at MPS schools and Brookfield Academy.
Currently she teaches watercolor courses through the UWM Sports and Recreation Dept. and the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center in Brookfield. She also holds private classes in the art studio at Danceworks and offers House Call Art Classes, private in-home art classes for individuals and small groups.
She paints vivid watercolor and acrylic paintings in her loft studio on the north side of Milwaukee. She has explored botanical subjects, landscapes, the human figure, and abstract imagery. You can learn more about Thea Kovac at http://www.theakovac.com.
