Common Ground on the Hill

I attended Common Ground on the Hill, a summer "art camp" at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, this past week.  For completing three classes per day for the past five days and 100 hours of work outside of class, I will receive 3 graduate credits.  The three classes I took were Watercolor Painting, Photoshop, and Manga (Japanes cartooning).  I felt the most success at Watercolor, because it was very like work I am doing in my studio with wet-in-wet acrylics on paper.  The teacher, Ellen Elmes, was great, and taught me a lot.  We started with the concept of "home", and Ellen encouraged me to think beyond my initial ideas and to develop symbols for them.  We worked through a process approach, where you don't fully design the work ahead of time, but develop it one stage or layer at a time.  My art is included.  It's entitled "The Number 5", and it contains images important to me as symbols of my childhood.