Get Messy Gifts - Week 3

I don't want to be cliche and say this is about the gift of life, but it kinda is. Or at least the gift of personal growth. The strength and confidence we gain when overcoming struggles or trying new things. 

The base of the spread are craft gift bags and a pink metallic gift bag from the previous page. I thought the metallic pink would be great to go with the heart and used the vellum to tone down the shine. 

There's also three types of glitter! Some fine glitter for the heart outline, larger glitter in the swirls, and holographic glitter on the white paper cutouts. I'm really happy with the effect of the glitter outline on the vellum and I definitely have plans to keep experimenting with this technique. 

Weekend Plans:

1. Merry Christmas!

Get Messy Gifts - Week 2

Week two of Season of Gifts and we're dealing with the idea of living in the present. Of not just letting the days go by. This week I was really challenged with this. I have a few projects to finish up before the end of the year and I'm feeling the lack of time and find myself wondering where that time has gone.

Over the last few years, I felt like I was just existing. Just going through the motions of life. I'd find myself thinking and telling others that I couldn't even remember what I had done the previous week. And that was disheartening. I don't want to look back on the year and only remember the "big" events. 

I was inspired by Matisse's collages, where he would "paint with scissors." To me, theses shapes represent events passing by. Events that I'm trying to capture and remember and to not let the dark pain's gray overwhelm me. 

Weekend Plans:

1. See Rogue One

2. Christmas Potluck

Get Messy Gifts - Week 1

As much as I love Christmas, for me, the month of December is also a time to look back on the past year and plan for how I'm going to start January. It has that exciting feeling of possibilities that I used to get at the start of every school year, especially during college.

So how appropriate that the last season of Get Messy for the year is called Gifts?! Since the more introspective themes are my favorite, I'm going with a list of attributes I want to work on for the new year.

I'm starting of with the idea of persistence. I admit, goal setting is a struggle for me.  Most of the time I never make them, because then I don't have to admit that I might fail at something.

My journal this season is make from a mix of gift bags and mixed media paper. I had the larger, neon pink doilies already, and then die cut more doilies out of pattern papers. I love the look of hand cut letters, so I splattered some metallic mist paint on black construction paper to help break up the solid black. 

Van Gogh has some of the most insightful quotes I've ever come across. And although I've read variations like this before, I'm a firm believer in the idea that sometimes you need to read something over and over before it clicks. 

Weekend Plans:

1. Finish up One Little Word 2016 album

2. Continue with December Daily

3. Kelly Purkey workshop on Sunday in NYC!

Get Messy Dreams - Week 6

Get Messy Season of Dreams wrapped up a few weeks ago. And I just have a couple pages left to share.

I've almost finished reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and one thing that will stay with me is the idea that my inner artist is like a child. I believe that open sense of wonder and lack of fears children have is great way to push forward creativly. Also I love how when spread this way the ink looks likes nerves. 

A little bit of madness can be a good thing, right? Nothing too serious, more like childhood silliness. I have great memories of art making in college at 2 or 3am, when you're pushing yourself past exhaustion and come up with ideas you usually wouldn't. It can spark creativity and help to keep the creative ripples moving.  

Overall I loved this season. Like Season of Introspection, it dealt with understanding the psyche which fascinates me. It's also the second season where I filled all the pages in my handmade journal, which  I'm really proud of. 

Get Messy Dreams - Week 5

This week got busier than I expected, but I still managed to make a spread that's been in my head for a while.

I wanted to convey that sense of bleariness you get after opening your eyes. It's kinda like bokeh, before you're eyes can focus. I also wanted to portray a sense of dreams slipping away. Where these confetti dots drift away as you come awake. 

I made the background with distress ink, rubbing the ink pad on the paper and spraying a lot of water to make the colors bleed and run together. I love the dreamy water quality of it. For the dots, I used the end of a paintbrush and then went over each dot with my fingertip to blur it a bit. 

Weekend Plans: 

1. Get Messy Totems class

Get Messy Dreams - Weeks 1-4

 We're now over half way through the Season of Dreams and this is my first blog post on the season. I have to give props to everyone who posts weekly or even daily in some cases. Being more consistent is definitely a major goal of mine.

So back to the beginning...?! I was so excited when this season's theme was announced. I have always been fascinated by my dreams and even have some that I remember from when I was a child. I bought a dream interpretation book in college that I still go to today, if there's an element in the dream that sticks out to me.

And that's how I approach dream interpretation. I don't overthink it and I don't dwell on the details. I just think about the overall feeling and what one or two elements stand out. Then if I decide to interpret the dreams and none of the explanations make sense, I let it go. I'm all about just going with the interpretation that "clicks." If it doesn't, it doesn't and I move on. 

I decided to work in an unbound journal this season because I have an idea for the cover that I didn't want to get covered in paint. And I wanted the option of adding in more pages. I will admit this does bring some challenges in that I have to make sure I keep the journal in order. But I'll be worth it once I bind the cover. 

I started making pages a week before receiving the first prompts. I was just so excited to get started. The first few pages were heavily collage influenced and once I came back from my vacation, they moved towards more painted and or collaged with handprinted papers. I'd recommend hand painting paper to everyone. It's so satisfying to know you created every element on the page. 

These last few weeks of the season I think I'm going to try to delve deeper in the dreams and what they represent in a more abstract way. Dreams are so abstract to begin with and I want to convey that; the feeling of not quite remembering a dream or the feeling of coming out a dream. 

Weekend Plans:

1. Rearrange Bedroom

2. Organize craft room

3. Finish up One Little Word prompt for October

How I'm Doing: #100daysproject

I started this project later than most. My first collage went up on Instagram May 27th and I've completed my first 30. There are now 75 days left in the year (??!!) and I have 70 collages to make.

Over the weekend I got caught up with the new podcast How She Creates and decided to use the #5minutesofcollage idea to help me complete this project. This was a result of the conversation during the second episode that featured Katie Licht and Lauren Caterson.

My paper scraps are all in small containers and it'll be a nice challenge to rummage through them to quickly make a collage without second guessing myself. I'm also trying to trust my artistic intuition so I think this will be a great excersize for that as well.