A Fresh Start

During the collective pause while we burrowed into the longest nights of the year over the Winter Solstice (in the northern hemisphere), I did my share of reflecting and planning for the new year.

As did everyone else, it seems, on the interwebs.

I didn’t want to make resolutions or goals, as both dissolve and fade in the light of real life—and after completing a year-long, weekly project I didn’t want to box myself in with another one. But I thought I could using a guiding intention for my art practice. A navigational beacon for 2023 that would keep me sailing in a direction I want to go.

And the direction I want to head next is to experiment more, play with new materials in new combinations and generally wander outside my comfort zone.

I mean this as both a matter of spirit and craft. Through more intentional experimentation and play, I am as eager to learn more about my Self as a creative being as I am to improve my art skills.

I didn’t know where to start at first

So I began by making marks in watercolor. The page above started with random shapes spaced far apart, just for fun. And then I kept going round the page with shapes that got closer and closer together—until there was no more space to mark.

My first experiment of the new year turned out to be: how close can I get random shapes? Just fun. Just experimentation—which leads me to new ideas for new marks, with new materials…the ball has started rolling.

In the meantime, I’ve been delighted and surprised by a range of new offerings by other artists

The new year’s energy is palpable on those interwebs! And I couldn’t help it, I now have several different classes and challenges I’ve decided to join in the coming weeks and months—which I thought I would share here if you’re interested in joining too.

Sketchbook Squad with Sarah Watts—a free daily sketchbook challenge

The Hundred Day Stitchbook with Ann Wood Handmade (I like her latest blog post about this free project too).

Free to Dream in Ink and Watercolor with Gaia Marfurt and Karen Abend—a 5 day zoom workshop January 24-28th.

Moonshine 2023 with Effy Wild—I’ll be following along with curiosity and making moon paintings each month.

With each new offering that crossed my path, I worried that I might pile too many things on my creative plate (the internet being the ultimate buffet table that it is!) But then I decided that first, with these several and my own self-directed experiments going, I’ll always have choices for what to work on—and I definitely WON’T work on each one each day.

Also, I’m approaching each experience as an opportunity to practice my guiding intention to experiment and play—which means releasing any standards for perfection or meeting schedules. The Hundred Day Stitchbook might take me 200 days. I tend to work in my sketchbook daily but some days I can’t—and I definitely won’t be working off Sarah Watt’s wonderful prompts every day. That’s okay! And if I get started on something and I don’t want to continue?

I will resist my childhood training to finish everything on my plate.

Everything this year is an experiment.

So what about you? Do you have an intention for the new year? Any plans? Want to join me in any of the offerings below? Let me know in the comments section below—or email me!

Weekly Warm-ups - Abstract Collage

Last week I decided [daily warm ups) to restructure daily warm ups in my art practice to see if I can overcome the obstacle of, well, not doing it. While I know intellectually that warming up with simple practice exercises primes the well and adds important practice and play time, I avoided warm ups more often than not.

So last week I tried my new approach, which is to assign myself weekly warm-up directions. That is, I choose a theme or technique to commit to exploring for that week for at least 15 minutes a day (and no longer than one hour). So I jumped right in and I assigned myself “abstract collage.”

 I think this structure of weekly assignments is going to work. And not because collage is one of my happy places and I just loved doing it. The simple act of determining a direction ahead of time makes it easy to start the creative day without having to think too much. Before I knew it I was in the zone—cutting, tearing, arranging…paper. As you see above, I created six different collage spreads with paper and glue.

 You might remember that I assigned myself collage with the intention to specifically explore bold shapes and lines, high contrast, use of repetition and a color story--elements in any kind of art that make me happy. I held focus on these elements while creating, and it seemed to help. I considered those elements as I made choices.

The one difficulty I had with the rules I set for myself is that it was really difficult to let it just be a warm-up and move on after a short period of time. Most of the collages above took longer than warm up time—and there at the end I fell pretty hard for those little compositions. I just had to work as long as it took to finish them!  

They are all drafty and unfinished as per my intentions for these warm ups…but oh, I feel so much potential for them. I am reminded that this kind of art making feels like me and I have much, much more exploring to do. That in fact, I need to keep going with these explorations.

 So it was a great first warm up week.

 This week, I would like to continue with collage but I’m going away for the long weekend (to southern California), so I’m switching my warm-up assignment to “urban sketching”—every day this week I’ll draw something outside from observation. This will be great practice and it will give me the opportunity to explore and draw.

 Meanwhile, I’m adding collage work into my growing list of art projects for post warm-up time when I return. Maybe if I  manage to keep my warm-ups actually warm-ups (short and sweet), I’ll have more time for that list.

Daily warm-ups—a new to me approach

One of the things I’m instituting in my art practice—or at least re-committing to—is a daily warm-up in my sketchbook (practice and play). The problem I’ve come up against before when I try to open with a daily warm-up is that I skip it.

The blank page looms, I don’t know what I want to do that day—so I don’t. I either have other art projects in progress or I have an idea for some final piece, and I launch into those instead.

But practice and play for no other reason than to practice and/or play is an important part of an art practice, i know that, both for building skills and discovering new ideas. Not to mention fun.

So I think I have the answer. I’m going to assign myself week by week something to explore. So maybe one week will be sketching from life and one week may be character studies and one week may be botanicals—whatever I want to work on.

My only rules are:

• I have to stick with my commitment for at least a week before moving on to a new assignment,

• I have to try to work in my sketchbook every day, first thing, for at least 15 minutes and up to an hour (and then, after a break and according to available time, I am free to focus on other work), AND

• This is not finished work. These are experiments, studies and general explorations. My inner perfectionist is going to have to accept ‘unfinished’, ‘rough’ and ‘drafty.’

Finally, I plan to make my weekly warm-up assignments intentionally. That is, identify for myself what I want to learn more about, explore or practice for specific reasons. AND I won’t share warm ups every day—but I’ll be sure to post regular roundup updates here on the blog.

This week my warm-up assignment is to create collage+other media studies that explore repetition and a color story, and feature attributes of the kind of art I like, no matter the subject matter: bold shapes and lines, and high contrast.

As you can see in the above photograph, I started. I loved working on it, my inner perfectionist SO wants to go in and 'finish it—but this warm up session is complete and tomorrow is another day.

Bonus Links:

The case for the optimistic mindset…

Watch this Cheetah run in low motion…For me, the best kind of church

Art, play and dreams

acrylic on drawing paper, 12”X18”

Last night I was dreaming about the art I would make today. I do that sometimes, which just shows how excited I get about my art practice and how much a part of my life it really is!

In my mind, I think, I was putting together some ideas.

You see, there was this experimental piece I’d made yesterday. I didn’t really intend to make it. I had set out on another project with acrylic paint, which I don’t use much lately, but as a background for wet layers on top, acrylics are ideal, so I got out my paints and quickly filled a large sheet of watercolor paper with background marks as intended.

However, I had put too much paint on the palette and I hate wasting paint, so I pulled out another large sheet of paper—and decided to just fill it up with color and shapes any which way, and before I knew it I was immersed.

Fully absorbed for over an hour.

I fell into PLAY, which as I mentioned yesterday is one really important activity in an art practice—this is time we don’t have goals or preconceived ideas about our art. We’re not practicing skills or polishing a final artwork. It’s just time to experiment, which is so important to open up new ideas and insights!

Anyway, play is not something I do enough in my art practice, and maybe I have to trick myself it like this time, but when I came up for air, well, I had a few emotions and thoughts.

First, it was super fun to just play!

I really must do more play. But then I started to criticize the painting as a whole—it’s certainly not a finished or well-crafted piece. Self criticism is way too easy. So I stopped myself there and reminded myself that perfection was not its purpose—I was just playing. And I remembered to look for elements I DID like and think about what I could do with those…

And I guess I thought about what I could do in my dreams! Which involved those “not boring” figures I’m working on in that Skillshare class…and I can’t wait to experiment with those ideas so some more!

I also think I might experiment further with this piece as well—see where I can take it with more layers.

Art making is kind of like skipping stones, right? Throw a flat stone across the smooth surface of a river and watch one idea become the next and the next…and then watch them ripple out.

Cool Links

I love this article from Margo at That Seems Important:

“The truth about art is it’s hard work. You’re in flow for a fraction of the time you spend editing. Most people don’t notice your work or don’t care. And many people don’t like it. Usually, you’re the one left having to advocate for why it matters and why people should pay attention.

“Which is why your commitment cannot be to the outcome, but to the process. You can’t control how your work is received. You can only control the integrity with which you create it.”

Speaking of Margo, she just announced an amazing climate crisis book project she’s been collaborating with other amazing writers and artists on, including I believe Seth Godin: The Carbon Almanac. I preordered it. I want to join the network when it goes live.

(Re)Discovering Copic Markers

Long ago I admired a friend’s art and she used what Copic markers. So I went out and bought a few of my own—like maybe 20 over a few months.

I didn’t know much about alcohol markers—or the differences in kinds of ink at all—so and I’m sorry to say I didn’t really learn more. All I could see was that they came out really splotchy when I tried to draw with them on drawing paper and that I would need far more than 20 colors if I wanted to create anything interesting—and they were expensive. Didn’t seem worth it to me.

It didn’t take long to pretty much abandoned my small collection of Copic markers and focus on creating with other materials.

Fast forward to the present. I’m a bit further along on my art journey, having fallen much further down the drawing rabbit hole since then. One day recently, I started playing with those old Copic markers in my sketchbook. I was pleased to find that 10 years later they still worked as if new (turns out their caps are air proof), and I instantly became intrigued with the way they layered color.

The more I played, the more first realized that I did in fact need more colors! So I added to my collection just a bit. And then, I began to discover the possibilities.

You can create patterns of color on top of color.

You can put one color on top of another color to create amazing new colors.

One color on top of itself becomes darker shades of itself.

AND Copics offer some interesting possibilities to layer with different mediums—like those Posca Pens, for example.

I love to discover new things!

My report so far is that these markers are cool.  There’s definitely a learning curve for how to use them and I can’t say that I’ve mastered them AT ALL. But. I am making up for my lack of curiosity way back when. I’ve found artists who are doing great work with Copics, tons of YouTube videos for how to use them, and of course I started exploring on my own.

You know, art making is just one endless journey of discovery. New materials and new ways to use color definitely excite me, but I think I’m looking forward most of all to discovering not just what the materials can do—but what I can do with them. That is, how can I apply Copic markers with my own creative voice—which I suspect will involve mixing with other media.

I’ll keep you posted.