Responding to Music with Paint!

continued...

Author: Larry Seiler, Contributing Editor

This might be a fun exercise to do with even your own children at home, and you can see these students were really getting into it!

Not to be outdone, my 9th graders too get into this one. In all truthfulness, their initial reaction to doing this exercise knowing that I had elementary students doing it as well was to express disfavor and a hint of humiliation. I assured them that I would do this as well, and that I find it fun. Art does not always have to be about stretching beyond one's self and pushing pushing pushing. There is a place for fun.

Finally...we'll end here with a bit of old fashioned "Show and Tell!" Four examples from four budding high school freshmen. Same song. Yet...different emotional and visual responses. All very exciting I believe for the eyes, and especially in interpreting the music. It is fun for the students to recognize their indivdual responses and so much diversity coming from a shared experience. This approach can be liberating for the ordered mind that tends to demand justification for producing "abstract" images, for...though it is indeed abstract, the work is a dignified attempt to realistically and truthfully respond to an actual and real event, albeit imagined and visual. In fact, it may provide a bit of insight as to how some abstract painters work, their brushwork and color being vehicles to express their emotional response.

Don't wait - discuss this topic with fellow artists now in our Art Business forum! Want the ultimate way to enjoy these works above? If you've got it, put in Santana's latest Emmy Award winning CD "Supernatural" and play song number six, "Smooth"....sit back and enjoy! By the way...any positive comments I will be sure to pass on to my students!

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After 20 years experience as a musician and winning Midwest wildlife artist, Larry Seiler, (winner of Wisconsin's 1984 Wildlife Artist of the Year, and Wisconsin's 1998 Inland Trout Stamp) finds a reinvention of himself over the last 2-3 years with a passion for landscape painting. His pursuit of the contemplative and spiritual sanity in life finds a special connection with his love of direct on location painting often referred to as "Plein Air."

Larry is represented by Art International, and his work is in a number of Midwest galleries including Grassland Gallery in the Mall of America. His background includes teaching art education for the public schools, participation in artist's workshops, travels and seminar speaking. Larry's works are primarily oils and acrylics, with the practice often of doing plein air studies to produce larger in-studio images. Larry is a contributing editor to WetCanvas! and can be reached via email at: lseiler@wetcanvas.com. He can also be found lurking in the WetCanvas! message boards. Larry's works are also available for sale at our sister site, www.art-agent.com.