Chance Landscapes with Kristin Cochran

I took a workshop at the Dallas Museum of Art last week.

C3 stands for Center for Creative Connections. It used to be the "kids" area of the museum with a play area like you might see at the mall. Now it's a beautiful fully interactive, multi generational area with real art mounted throughout the space, a big make-and-take area, digital programming and two fully stocked art labs for special events.

The workshop was called "Chance Landscapes" with Kristin Cochran. Kristin works with all kinds of techniques and materials.

We started with a color copy of an inspiring landscape at each work area.

I chose this rocky stream running through a forest.

The first exercise was layered mono printing. We placed a sheet of plexi over the print and painted on the plexi with watered down acrylic paint. We could do several layers of printing beginning with the lightest or furthest away layers of the landscape.

Here's my print of what could be the sky, clouds, and reflection in the water.

A second print of what could be the water, covering some of the reflection.

Another layer of the ground and the leafy canopy with sky peeking through.

Finally tree trunks and rocks in the stream.

Here you see the layered mono print and the inspirational photo.

I liked the idea of using a piece of plexi as a mono printing plate with an image under the plexi to "follow." I also like the idea of building layers of prints on top of each other.

I did another mono print with this landscape. Just one layer of paint and one print.

Classroom full of people and creative energy.

Next we did blind contour drawings from a hunk of clay that we molded into a "landform."

I usually hate blind contour drawings. But, I like these results because they are unpredictable and interesting. If I wanted to create a "pattern" to stitch or a filler that wasn't necessarily a recognizable image, this might be a technique I could use.

The last technique we explored was line drawing with ball point pen. I "copied" the waterfall from the second landscape. We used both blue and blank ink.

I can't resist some stitch-like hatching.

Then we dripped isopropyl alcohol on the drawing to see how the ink would run and create another layer of design.

Here's the view walking back to my car with a stack of prints under my arm.

Oh by the way... this workshop was completely FREE for me because I've been gathering points on my DMA Friends account. I posted about the DMA Friends program here. (Every time you visit the museum, you can text various codes to get points. Codes and points for visiting various galleries, attending events, solving the murder mystery, bringing friends to the museum, etc.) I redeemed some of my points for registration to the workshop. How amazingly awesome is that?! Thank you Kristin Cochran and DMA!