100 Done

I finished the 100 Day Project.... this was number 100 done along our riverside boardwalk with the Tuesday Painters group.

These next two are also done along the river, one done in Portland and the other here in Grand Haven, same river.

This is one of the other days and the more I see of what I get when I don't use the spiral bound book the more I dislike the spiral for these.  

They still work well for sketching ideas so I won't throw them out but ...

I switched for my dailies and I also began to think about getting some of my wonky angels done, Christmas is coming so a few of my dailies are angels... 

or just the feathers

And once again I got sidetracked making little sketchbooks....

and then read a blog about glued books so had to try that...

It's not spiral and it lays flat, both pluses.  However, I'm not sure how well it will hold up.  I'm taking it with me when I go to Spider Lake for my annual art retreat with above mentioned friend Terry. She and I have been doing these retreats since her youngest and my only were in Junior High.  Now both of those boys are well into their careers and raising kids of their own.

An Artists Date and a Great Exhibit

My artists date this week was in a place most of you probably don’t know exists, and if you have heard of it you would not expect to see the gem that I saw there, unless you were from there.  I took in the current exhibit at the Flint Institute of Arts.  Hands down, the FIA is the best small art institute I have ever visited.  It’s definitely worth a trip if you are interested in art.  The current exhibit will be there until September 8.

I know I’m suppose to start with the who, what, when and where and all I gave you was the where.  But it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the FIA, I had almost forgotten what a gem it is. Had to give a shout out about it.

              Back to the exhibit…. Isabelle De Borchgrave, Fashioning Art From Paper.  She builds sculptures, out of paper she has painted, life size sculptures, replicas of the fashions of the Renaissance, the styles of the 1920’s and modernist costumes from the Russian Ballet.

And not just the cloths, the accessories too.  Some of the jewelry and all of the shoes are paper.

 Even the lace....

   

 Some jewels are trompe l’oeil, 

and some gowns have a combination of both

 And then there were the 1920's evening dresses 

 and every day dresses from an in between period

 and the costumes

It's a fascinating exhibit, worth a look.  I may have to go back for another look.

"Stay In Your Lane"

I was listening to a podcast today... Robin-Marie and Sandi Keene, "Creatives Get Real!"  One takeaway I got from it was "Stay In Your Lane."  I am going to make a sign to hang in my studio.  Like Robin-Marie, I am always trying whatever it is I see that looks interesting and fun.  Yes, I have accepted that I am a master of being a Jack of All Trades but even with that, there is a limit.

Right now I'm focused on the art journal and even though I'm not liking some of what I'm doing, I'm learning and that's okay.  I know that I need to change direction in my work but still not sure what direction … so staying in my lane to me means stick with trying the two things you think you want to master, collage and abstraction.  Here are a couple more done this week.

And I have decided I really dislike the spiral binding so this journal is going on the shelf, a new one is getting started.  Here is the last entry in the spiral bound journal.

The spiral bound is still okay for working with my Tuesday Painter group because I paint and journal.  But that's all I'll be using them for.

"And The Beat Goes On"

Why did that song pop into my head?  Possibly a combination of the weeks events..."Rocketman", certainly not Sonny and Cher but music and continuing to work on my 100 Day Project.

If you haven't seen "Rocketman," go.  It's one I probably would have missed had a friend not asked me to take her.  The music was pure Elton John, the filming was colorful, the story was sad but worth seeing and a good ending.

And my dailies.... some good, some not so much.  Today's is one of those not so much but it was a learning experience so that much is good.  I tried some different things working on layers.

Take time and rethink are words that I had cut out some time ago and they were in my morning devotional book.  Seemed appropriate for this one.  I may go back in and do some more, then again, maybe just move on.  

Here are a few more.... and as usual, some I'm very happy with and some not so much..

 The circle in this one is from a pen and ink that I did from an image over on wetcanvas, a the weekend drawing event.  Here is the pen and ink... 

 Those fish just appeared, certainly wasn't planning fish when I put down the black and white but there they are and since I'm a Pisces it seems to fit.

Something I constantly need to remind myself to do.... Listen to the Whispers

 What can I say... it does win.

The kid in the boat is only using one oar which would mean he will be going in circles.  The drawing is mine and sometimes I feel like I'm going in circles.  That is especially true when clearing the clutter in my studio, I clear a space, go to another area to clear, come across something I had forgotten, start working on it again, in the space I had cleared and "the beat goes on."

Art Journal Fun

Day 56 and I realized that adding quotes could finish a page and it didn't matter if I liked it or not, just lots of what iffing so whatever happens is okay.  I have notebooks full of nothing but quotes so plenty of material for later spreads..   That one was Tuesday.  On Wednesday I decided to do my morning writing in my new art journal instead of the composition book I usually use.  Then I covered a lot of it up completely and glazed over other parts before finally adding some cheese cloth, thread and the quote..

On Day 58 I learned a new word, Meraki.  It's Greek and means putting your soul into whatever you are doing.  I like the word, I also liked this page just as it was... the paint on the page was the result of picking up paint from a palette so it didn't get wasted.  I added the stamp and put the word and definition in and then added the first line of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems... "One day you finally knew what you had to do and began..."

And today's is a mix of collage, paint and words; not a quote, just my thoughts.

It's only been a few days but I've learned two things so far.... I like doing it even when I don't particularly like the end result and I don't like working with the spiral binding.  I have no idea why the spiral binding doesn't bother me when I'm doing something realistic.  That's what all of my sketchbooks are like... well almost all anyway.  But somehow it bothers me on spreads like these so this last one was just done on one page.  I have others with stitched bindings so I may make a change before moving on.

The 100 Day Project Continued

I've passed the 50 day mark and kept up, only missed one day. When I started this I was going to do 50 days of small pieces in different media and then decide which I liked best and continue with that one medium.

Well, I didn't feel satisfied with any of them so I decided to take a different approach.  The rest of the project is going to be experimenting in an Art Journal.  Art Journaling is new for me.  I've always used a sketchbook.  I have boxes of them filled with things I've seen and done through the years but they are all either pencil or ink and watercolor drawings or sketches.  No whatifing and whatifing is what I feel like I need to do in order to find my way to the next level so....

…. here is my first page beginning the rest of the project.  Get it in gear seemed to me to be appropriate for a start...

Being Disorderly Has Its Advantages

A.A. Milne wrote "One off the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."  And I always find something long forgotten but worth finding when I sort through one of the piles in my studio.  A small start on printmaking paper and a lone paper napkin were in one of the piles.  I put them together along with a few other pieces of paper that were sitting on my desk.

Once that was done I started sorting another pile.  I often have to do some sorting to clear space so I can work on some larger projects.  In that pile I found some information about ATC's.  Haven't done any of those in a very long time but thought they just might be fun to work on as part of my 100 Day Challenge.  They are small after all.  And having done a couple 2" x 2" pieces and mounting them so they ended up being 15 x 15 I'm thinking I may do something like that with the ATC's of they turn to be worth doing.  This is my first one.... more to come.

And here are a few more of my most recent pieces that are part of the 100 Day Challenge....