Where to find inspiration for your art

One of the best ways to reignite the creative flame is to look up some of your favourite artists that the artist in you resonates with. One way I look for new artists that I might add to my library of inspirational artists is to look up galleries and go through the artists that they represent and discover some new talents that inspire me. Another way is to look at some of the modern art magazines. Here are a few of them to look up:

Border Crossings
Modern Painters
Canadian Art Magazine

Another way to get inspired is to dedicate a day to go to the portion of the city where you can find a concentrated number of galleries and explore them. Here are a few areas of Vancouver with concentrated number of galleries:

Granville street
Granville Island
Main Street
Culture Crawl (a three day festival in November with 400 artists and 50 studios open to public)

How to grow as an artist

For while now, I have been thinking about making some intentional changes and exploring new techniques, tools and materials in my creative process. Back in the days, my professor at university would talk to us about intentionally sabotaging our paintings in order to create a puzzle in the creative process. I understand where he comes from; when we let go of the fear we face in the process of our work and are being open to making mistakes along the way, the magic happens. As artists we can get caught up with the same habitual techniques, methods, materials, and concepts and forget to push ourselves. In order to grow, we need to sabotage our repetitive habits and surprise ourselves.

Opus art supplies in Vancouver v. Blick art supplies in Los Angeles

I am on a one week art exploration in California. I decided that I wanted to find out the main art supplies stores in L.A. and so I ended up at Blick at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Colby. The store was a bit bigger than the Opus store in Granville Island. I explored every single isle in the store and these are some of the a few things that I found intriguing:

I've been looking to find this amazing triangle shaped palette knife that I have from Bob Ross collection from  Michael's (a craft store in Canada) and Opus just doesn’t' carry it. I found another brand name of the same palette knife at Blick.

I found these giant size oil sticks/oil pastels at Blick. They are about 3/4 inch thick which are great for large scale paintings.

I've been using disposable colour palette at Opus for over a year now. the biggest size they have at opus is 12x 16. Guess what size I found at the Blick? 24x30! I was tempted to buy one, but it wouldn't fit into my luggage; so, I didn't.

And I have been going to so many galleries on this trip and I noticed that the works generally here are extremely large scale. It puts my large scale paintings to shame. And as a result I found that at Blick they have more collections of larger scale canvases, but not a bigcollection on wood panel, which is what I love to paint on. The paintings are mostly done on canvas here.

Creativity

I had a great workshop this weekend with a few amazing individuals and would like to share with you what I shared with them, which I beleive is the core to our creativity

I‘d like to bring your attention to what I like to call a “Creative Play”.

Creative play is a play which brings us closer to the innocent-childlike, and spontaneous exploration of ourselves and the world, before our mind steps in to judge, justify and restrain our flow.
I learned a little bit more about this when I attended a workshop on clownology back in September.

The goal of creative play is to get out of the constraining and  controlling mind and into the impulse of the moment. It is to experience the freedom to create, explore, express, learn, grow and experience the creative flow without constraint, condition and judgment.

We are going to focus this weekend on the creative play and help you get in touch with your innocence.

By paying attention to your impulses, inner child, the innocence you were all born with, trusting your intuition and simply allowing yourself to play, you are entering the infinite realm of creativity. This creation is not just about the physical manifestation of paint on canvas, it’s about life. Each one of us at any given moment is creating our reality and our life as a whole. So I invite you to grand yourself a freedom to play along, create and flow.

Creative process is about the relationship between mind and matter; physical manifestation of our perception at any given moment. Our reality and self changes every moment. Example: you might look at a painting you did a while ago and have a hard time believing you did it. That’s because your reality and presence back then was different than now. It always changes and you flow with the change and therefore you create in the process.

Three-Day Abstract Painting Workshop ON SALE %40 off for the LAST 2 SPOTS

From Start To Finish: Abstract Painting Workshop On Panel In Acrylics And Mixed Media
May 27th, 28th, and 29th
Three-Days
With Rojia Dadashzadeh NEW!!
Location: 1790 Vernon Drive, Old Foundry Studios
Registration: info@rojia.comwww.rojia.com
$495 for for only $299

Each participant will experience working on three wood panels as we take you on a creative journey sharing our art making process with you from start to finish.

Students will be encouraged to explore language, colour, composition, nurture emotional richness, spontaneity and experimentation and to develop conceptual ideas.

A slide show presentation of modern art will be given with discussion and emphasis on composition, balance, colour, form, symbolism, the representation of motion, and the superimposition of images in the organization of space in abstract paintings.

Both one-on-one and group critiques are aimed at enhancing individual growth.

Media will include heavy body acrylics, mixing and pouring mediums, moulding pastes and gels, and professional grade MSA or Polymer Varnish. Various materials and mediums, for example, coloured pencil, crayon, and inks will be introduced and used to experiment with different techniques during the process.

The workshop will include plenty of demonstrations and time for students to work.

Students will get to:
• Experience taking an idea from concept to completion with our support and guidance
• Experiment with new paint colours and mediums provided in the workshop by our sponsors
• Learn how to prepare wood panels for painting
• Learn how to apply paint to panel
• Learn the fundamental of colour mixing and create their own colour mixing tables
• Create depth and texture by via scratching and electrical sanding techniques
• Experience group discussion on creative process and the journey of making abstract art
• Varnish the result painting with professional quality archival products
• Learn tricks & tips on wiring the back of their paintings for hanging

Rojia Dadashzadeh
Artist and Art Instructor
Founder of www.rojia.com
Play! Create! Flow!
info@rojia.com
604 916 5677
For more information, visit www.rojia.com

Joy Of Painting with Rojia Dadashzadeh at Beaumont

JOY OF PAINTING

With Rojia Dadashzadeh

@ The Beaumont Studios
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT
FRIDAY The 13th, 2011
Doors at 8:30pm – Classes 9pm SHARP
316 West 5th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5Y 3P1

Come on out and play with colours and tools and make your own abstract painting to hang on your wall.

No experience needed! Just a will to play! create! and flow!

In this workshop you will learn how to:

1. Apply paint on panel with palette knife.
2. Paint with 2-3 colours that are in harmony with one another.
3. Scrape and draw in to wet paint with a few tools such as nail, wood skewer and fork.
   

www.rojia.com
info@rojia.com
604 916 5677

Goergia Straight 2011 Interview: Portrait of an Artist: Rojia Dadashzadeh,

Portrait of an Artist: Rojia Dadashzadeh

By Stephen Thomson, April 25, 2011

Rojia Dadashzadeh

"Rebirth I" by Vancouver abstract painter Rojia Dadashzadeh.

Rojia Dadashzadeh is a Vancouver artist who teaches workshops on abstract painting with her friend and fellow artist Deb Chaney.
Little Gems, an exhibition of acrylic and mixed-media paintings by both Dadashzadeh and Chaney, runs at the Beaumont Studios [316 West 5th Avenue, Vancouver] until May 3.
The Straight spoke with Dadashzadeh by phone about her art.
What do you like about abstract painting?
“I like the idea of being able to access that inner child by just playing and giving in to your intuition and allowing some of the impulses to come through.”
What is the key to doing it well?
“The key is allowing a lot of mistakes to happen….If you have fear then you cannot be successful.”
How does your creative process work?
“I notice that I get inspired a lot by the seasonal colours….I start with colour and from then on I work with the composition and different shapes and then at the very end I really play with the idea of letting go and then getting into that childlike mindset where you just grab a pencil and then you just doodle.”
Portrait of An Artist is a new feature on Straight.com that profiles local visual artists. Suggest an artist to profile in the comments section below or by sending a message via Twitter to twitter.com/thomsonstraight.

http://www.straight.com/article-389084/vancouver/profile-artist-rojia-dadashzadehhttp://www.straight.com/article-389084/vancouver/profile-artist-rojia-dadashzadeh