Love & Glitter

Art Out The Wazoo

  30 Days ~ Day One: I'm taking 30 Days in Your Journal with Julie of Balzer Designs and I'm really enjoying the concept of quick and dirty spreads in under ten minutes with each spread spanning a number of days. I have adapted her process so that when first I sit down to create the first few layers, I take my time. This sets me up for four or five daily journal entries that will take no more than five or ten minutes. I like the idea of keeping a book of days. I like the idea of sitting down every day to record a small snippet of my life. I'm trying to get into the practice of writing 'small stones' but I find myself resisting the word 'small'. Stones, I get. Small, though ~ well, I don't write small. I write missives. I write epics. I can't shut up to save my life. So, as with pretty much everything else I do, I'm adapting the practice to include blogging/journaling. I am attempting to inject everything I write with the beauty I find in my interactions with the world. (This morning it was the beauty of that first swig of coffee.)

Supplies used: Derwent Inktense, Golden fluid acrylics, Steward Gill paint, Copic multiliner and collage element by Tangie McMeen Baxter. I am loving it.

I'm breaking with my tradition of working either in a Moleskine or in a handbound journal made with cold press Fabriano paper (my fave). Since this is intended to be a mess (though this first page has the potential to turn into something really special!), I'm using a cheap sketch book from my local art supplier. Gessoed and glued pages make the difference between book-that-works and sodden-mess. This took about an hour to do, but I spend at least an hour on art every day anyway, so I don't feel like it will be too time consuming for me to keep up. Especially when you consider that I'll only have to spend an hour or so once every four or five days. That's nothing!

Couch art has been continuing with spreads happening near-daily. Here are the latest:

Couch Art # 6 ~ "Nice Try"

Couch Art # 7 ~ "Lights and Shadows"

Couch Art # 8 ~ Perspective

Couch Art # 9 ~ "Making Beauty" (in progress)

Couch Art

I had three days of terrible tummy during which I did not art. On the fourth day, I decided it was time to get a basket and fill it with goodies to keep by my couch, because if there's anything worse than feeling poorly, it's feeling too poorly to art. What's in my basket? A container of gesso A container of matte fluid polymer medium A tin of Caran D'Ache Neocolor II A tin of Caran D'Ache Neocolor I (metallic) A pair of scissors A glue stick A travel pack of baby wipes A Cotman travel watercolor kit A box of sample-size Golden fluid acrylics (the starter pack of 8 colours) A collection of black pens A white pen Some brushes A bottle of water A rag A General's Sketch and Wash pencil A 2H pencil, sharpener and kneaded eraser A roll of paper towel A Moleskine Sketch Beside the supply basket is another basket full of magazines and junk mail in case the collage bug hits me. If I stretch a little I can reach my tote full of mark makers, too, so at any given moment I can reach in to that and grab a Copic marker, a Sakura Gelly Roll, a Prismacolor pencils, a Pitt pen, some charcoal or one of my favourite purple Bic pens. Here's the thing:  I had a lot of time to think while doubled over with weird tummy-ness, and I came to some conclusions. My life revolves around Wild Precious. I eat, sleep, breathe, and dream Wild Precious. I find myself trying to leverage whatever I do so that it somehow serves Wild Precious.  This isn't about money. It's about service. Y'all know that the majority of what I do, I do for free, and I love what I do. LOVE it. But the truth is, all this living breathing eating sleeping WPS means I am not meeting my own need for plain and simple fun-for-me. ~I need to do more art for the sake of it ~I need to accept that this is a *spiritual practice* for me and if all I ever do is 'work at it' then I'm skipping the spirit part and I end up with an empty well ~I do what I love, yes, but if I do it to the exclusion of everything else (as I have been) I will grow to resent it. Couch Art is the practice I've undertaken as a result. It is unscheduled. It is not a commitment. It has nothing of 'work' in it. I will not record it for posterity. I will not leverage into work for Wild Precious. It is as sacred as going to Temple or Church. It is mine. But that doesn't mean I'll never share it. :) Reclaiming art for me and only me means I can fill the well on my own and come back into the world all full of juicy goodness. It means I can come into that sanctuary with my head on straight, my heart wide open, and my smarts engaged. It might take me a little while to recover from tummy troubles (and a pretty nasty case of resentment flu ~ I wonder if they're related!) but I *will* recover. And Couch Art will be a big part of my healing process.