Doodle Palooza

So on Tuesday night we went to the Art Institute of Chicago (http://www.artic.edu/) and participated in an event called "Doodle Palooza."I think they host it every Tuesday or some sort of community event. Anyway, it was a lot of fun!
There was a guest artist who was leading the workshop and two long tables with pieces of paper and lead wooden pencils. So at first we were asked to draw whatever we felt like on the paper (which were two pieces of paper taped together but we had to treat it as one piece) and after a little while she (the visiting artist) told us to split the pieces of paper and pass one two people to the right. Once we got our new piece we were supposed to tape to our new piece and find a way to make both drawings seem like one. Whattttt... SUPER COOL RIGHT??!!!
As time passed we were given markers, colored pencils, and china pencils. This is one of the pieces that I took home. I sketched the baby and someone did the other half of the drawing and one other person colored it and added a few other things.

In the other exercise we had to draw something with our eyes closed and then pass it to the right. I received a piece of paper with a shape that then became the old lady's hair. I don't really know where the inspiration to draw these cartoons came from since I never draw cartoons but it was such a refreshing experience. I loved the end piece. Well, that's not true I guess part of the inspiration came from the revolving lighted sign that is outside the institute.

The colors especially in the bottom drawing are really vibrant. The old lady's hair shape was what I received after the drawing with closed eyes exercise and I did the rest. I also sketched most of the right side of the baby picture and someone drew over it with black market and china marker

This whole sign spins clockwise.

I got a good picture. It was massive!

When I was drawing Rachel (a peer from my program) ad I started talking and I shared with her that I'm doing a program called "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. Then a young woman asked me if I was talking about that book and she said that she had met her friend through doing The Artist's Way Program. So after the workshop was done, I found her (her name is also Rachel) and introduced myself. We talked for a little bit and she told me that they had done the program with their church. She gave me her information and the information to her church. I'm going to the 5 p.m service tomorrow or I guess technically today since its past midnight. I'm excited! I hope I can find a place there. So that same night I checked my e-mail and tried to reply to old e-mails that I had set aside when I was sick in LA. I came across Laura's e-mail and when we had dinner together in LA we talked about the importance of writing and finding people to share your writing with, so I was going to tell her about this book and what do you know... she had actually sent me the PDF for it! Isn't that bizarre and utterly amazing? Yes, it is.

I'm so grateful to be here,
Rocio