The winning combination of music and art was on full show last weekend at the first of our Making and Music sessions, created and run by our amazing teacher Jade Perry. Each session explores a different musical and artistic genre, and this session was all about Woodstock era music and its close companion, psychedelic art!
The psychedelic movement began in the mid-1960s. From the latin word “psyche”, meaning mind, and the greek word “delos”, which means to manifest, or awaken: “to awaken the mind.” Psychedelic art is informed by the notion that altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are a source of creative inspiration.
This art style featured abstract swirls of intense colour with curvilinear calligraphy reminiscent of Art Nouveau, innovative typography and hand-lettering, fantastic, metaphysical, surrealistic subject matter, and intense optical colour vibration.
Music festivals and concerts were a prominent feature of the 60s landscape, and musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Who, The Doors and Janis Joplin were the super-stars of the day. This unique artform found expression in band posters and album covers.
Our art space was set up beautifully by Jade with candles, flowers and throws with 60s prints, along with yummy nibblies to keep our inspiration flowing. Not to be outdone by the décor, we dressed up too in our best “going to Woodstock outfits.” Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin wailed and jammed in the background as we began our artworks.
We were encouraged to plan out our artwork with several main images, that we could free-draw or use carbon paper to trace images we liked on to our paper. There were many pictures of psychedelic artworks to draw from and to give us ideas on how we were going to fill in and around our main images. Watercolours, markers, and paint pens were all available to create our designs, and Jade was there to offer support, advice and demonstrate techniques.
Several of the students at the session had never done artworks like this before, and this experience was a welcoming, low-stress introduction. Having the music playing as we played with pattern, colour and design added to the mellow, fun night, and the hours flew by.
We all enjoyed our Music and Making session, and can’t wait until the next one! If you like jazz and drawing still life, our next session is coming up Fri night 19th August- so book now!
More music and making sessions to come include:
90s Charcoal Grunge on Fri 16th September- book now!
And in Term 4:
Rocky Horror Life Model
Hip Hop Stencil Art
