Teaching Sharing – by Teacher Grace

Hello! My name is Grace, and I am one of the teachers at Artgrain. Today, I am sharing about my own artistic practice. Outside of teaching at Artgrain, I am also making artworks in my daily life.

Having my own creative projects helps to keep me feeling inspired, so that I can enthusiastically share my knowledge about art with my students. Most of my works focus on people and places in my life. To me, recording these important moments and feelings helps me to stay thoughtful and aware, instead of just letting life pass me by.

boat — My paintings and drawings often record events and memories from my life. I also make comics sometimes, and am interested in how more than one image can come together to tell a story.

kyliesmall — This piece was inspired by one of the techniques taught in our Foundational Art programme at Artgrain, where students practice mark making with oil pastels on top of a painted acrylic base. I was so impressed by the results, I decided to make some work with the same technique.

inprogresssmall — Here is an (unfinished!) acrylic painting on canvas I am working on. I’m experimenting with putting a layer of abstract coloured marks on top of the image of my parents, in order to make the painting more complex and mysterious. However, I am still adding more to it and don’t know what the final outcome will look like.

To all our young aspiring artists, I would say that the key to getting better is practice. Being able to draw, paint or sculpt accurately is about muscle memory, just like improving at sports or playing a musical instrument. Don’t be afraid of failure — not every artwork has to be perfect. I have made many imperfect artworks over the years, but the things that I learned from them allow me to create more accomplished pieces today. And I’m still not done with learning and improving yet!