This Inspired Life

Tyler sent me this article from Powazek today: "Why Everything Sucks, Why That’s Awesome, and How It’s Changing Us". And I found it quite apropos in relation to my goal of creating something every week for a year. If I had a genie in a bottle, I'd just be a fabulous creator of everything, and I would never suck. But I don't have a genie and I haven't had thousands of hours of practicing, well, anything at all. The thing I've done the most of is writing. And I'm still at the "not suck" stage. I have a long way to go before accomplishing "master." I've always been okay with that. It's been driven into my psyche for as long as I can remember that writing is hard, and it takes a long time to be really, really good, even if you have a natural talent.

I think I have a natural talent for creating art. Still, I know I need lots of practice. TONS. Hence my goal to create every week. There's a staunch perfectionist and worrywart in me, but I have a very casual side too: someone who can simply slough off my mistakes, my faults, my inconsistencies, and hang them on my wall of class A efforts with a huge smile. I had a moment of feeling embarrassed to show my first artwork of this project, but I fought it off quickly. This is about sharing my experiences and chasing a dream, and hopefully inspiring someone else to do the same.

I decided that since I have no formal training in art (except for grade 11 and 12 art classes and whatever I've dabble in since then), I would take inspiration for some of my favourite artists to begin. For this artwork, I studied some of Michelle Moode's art, as I love her mark making and mixed media approach. She's one of my favourite artists.

I began this piece with sketching out some of my ideas with pencil. And then I just dove in, tore out a sheet of my 9x4.5 Cartiera Magnani paper, and drew some of the elements that I knew I wanted in the artwork. It started out well and I felt pleased, but once I began to colour the shapes with watercolours, I became less enthused. I have no idea how to work with watercolours, so the shapes that started out nicely became the subject of my experiments with this form of painting. Also, because of my frustration I ended up using too many colours, rather than forming a strong colour palette and sticking with it. I also felt that I was keeping the elements too constrained with the black ink, and when I ventured out I did not feel happy with the results, except for the threaded "hearts" in the centre and the typewriter ink. I like some of the elements in this piece, and I think I will take those and work on a new piece in the future. For now, I will let this one sit and breathe for a while. While not a seller, I think it has promise if I work on it. Go me.

So even though I'm almost always strapped for time, I made a goal for this year to create something once every week for the entire year. It's ridulously lofty and yet it is a goal that I'm really excited about. I think about creating art almost all the time, and often I begin, but don't finish. It drives the perfectionist in me absolutely bonkers. BONKERS!

I've been tweaking my rules here and there -- initially I thought I would create an artwork once a week, and then I opened it up to simply creating something. That includes stuff like cooking (or baking) something new, building a new garden bed or feature, sewing myself a skirt, making a birdhouse...or even a daisychain, whatever! It's all about the act of creating. I'll write about the things I make and hopefully it will inspire you to create, too, on whatever schedule fits your lifestyle.