Variety is the Spice of Life

Okay, so something really exciting happened. As an artist, I am a member of several different art groups on Facebook. One day, a Dutch woman posted in one of them that she was interested in doing a collaborative art project with another artist, but didn’t have any details ironed out; was anyone interested? Well, the response was amazing! Well over a dozen artists responded! There were so many people, that at first she didn’t think she could ever accommodate them all. But then a solution presented itself. A few artists dropped out before it got rolling, leaving a total of 14 participants.

She ended up dividing a reference photo from Pixabay by Daria-Yakovleva into fifteen different pieces. Each person drew one section, the last section being the photograph itself. For a month, I painstakingly drew the most challenging piece I think I’ve ever done. February 19, I finished my piece! Above is the finished piece with everyone else’s portion photoshopped together to make the whole piece.  Below is my section.

One of the most interesting aspects (to me) of the project is how diverse the group is! The fourteen different artists represent SEVEN different countries around the globe! We all worked together to prove that sometimes, a whole really is much greater than the sum of its parts. It was a very interesting project, and I learned a lot about how I might tackle scary textures in the future.

Participating in this project are me (Tina Hickman), Luca van der Leeden (our fearless organizer), Afshan Ck, Carol Carnett, Cass Hanley, Erik Franken (our Photoshopper, who assembled all the pieces!), Hanne Krumwiede, Holly Hoffman Farmer, Jennifer Swartout, Linda Prezalar Mello, and Victoria Diaz.  Unfortunately, three artists had to drop out due to personal issues and other priorities.

I present to you, “Variety is the Spice of Life.”