Category: 100dayproject

17% Quirkfulness

2022 100 day project starts here!

I spent most of a day putting together the little concertina sketchbook that I’m using for the 100 Day Project this year AS WELL AS the Sketchbook Project.

Most every time I’ve taken on these projects, I’ve overclocked myself.

Given that I’ve already missed the deadline for the SBP by 6 months I thought to mash up these two projects.

Let’s see what becomes of it.

Some thoughts on Quirkfulness.

As I cut and glued and trimmed and finagled together the concertina pages, I watched the ebb and flow of acceptance that the stuff I make will inevitably have a wonkiness to it. 

Yes, I measured and cut with a ruler. Also Yes, the pages came out a bit skew-whiff. 

Yes, I cleaned my brush before I primed the paper, and also Yes, there was still a bit of dark blue paint on it that’s got them a bit streaky already. 

Theme established:

It’s all part of the Quirkfulness.

Now, every day as I film and photograph steps in the progress, I remind myself:

Through the ugly stages, the layers i know will get covered up, the point is to carry on.

Quirkfulness is my style, it’s a feature not a bug.

It’s a sketchbook, not rocket surgery.

It’s okay to be okay with this.

Today we reached day 17 and I’m fully in my stride with daily progress, an idea of what the finished piece will look like, and all manner of chaos on and around my desk!

I post updates daily on Insta and sporadically on TikTok.
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Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

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the view from the middle

Reporting in from half way through the 100 day project, I am up to my eyes in part-done paintings!

Because this time I’ve chosen to make my 100 pieces all at once instead of one per day, it’s proving tricky to see how far it’s progressing.

I’ve posted daily snippets of progress over on IG, including short videos & time-lapses showing some of the ways I’ve been keeping on top of this ridiculous number of works!

Adding a layer to a bunch of paintings all at once by drawing across them as one was fun. The spaces and shapes the big abstract squiggle made on each piece connects them, and also makes a individual drawing on each.

Filling in the gaps in between made these sweet sibling painting pairs.

Whole families of similarly colored pieces began forming, and this whole endeavor feels like a new community forming.

I look at these and consider: would a less complicated person call these finished?

Which leads me to wonder if an unconscious part of me decided to tackle the project this was a way to work on the art of knowing when something’s done.

One thing’s for sure, I don’t want to spend days 98 & 99 in a mad scramble of adding last touches to dozens of paintings. That sounds like such a ‘me’ thing to do.

So I’m thinking the second half of this marathon should focus on the process of final layers and finishings.

This is the where we are at, day 50, the end of the beginnings snd the beginnings of the the endings.

I’ll be back soon with news on the other doings and goings on in my studio. Meanwhile, to be first to see what I make and find out the thinking behind it, do sign up for my monthly-ish newsletters.

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#100daysofQuietColor

Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

Join Me!

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6 weeks of daily painting

How ridiculous would it be to begin 100 paintings all at once? Let me show you…

a stack of paintings

We are 6 weeks into the 100 day project and I’m really loving this challenge.

Every day I post snippets of progress on IG, photos, videos & time-lapses of the layers adding up.

There’s a box on my desk homing the 100 started paintings, and at any one, time several are scattered across every flat surface around me as the newest layers dry!

Here are a few of the pieces I’ve been playing with this week.

So far I’ve used watercolours, acrylics and inks for larger blocks of color and graphite, charcoal, markers and fine liners for the details.

Is that all? It’s been a dizzying blur (but in the best possible way)

Yeh, then there was some potato printing & stamping with a recycled hot water bottle. I’m feeling like some collage elements could be showing up soon, and maybe some stitching too. watch this space! 😉

Next Sunday marks day 50, so I’ll be back next week with a special post at the half way point.

Follow me on Instagram for daily updates 🙂
#100daysofQuietColor

Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

Join Me!

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the next of 100 beginnings

Twenty days in to the 100 day project, here’s where I’m at.

On 31 January I set myself the task to create 100 paintings in 100 days (see how it came about here).

I’ve been experimenting with different media and techniques, adding a little bit to a bunch of these paintings every day. Part of this challenge is to keep the colours quiet and muted, which doesn’t come naturally to me.

A few blue backgrounds were looking a little too vivid so I toned them down with grey to get back on track 😉

A bonus I did not expect from working in this whole new palette is that I’m getting much more of a buzz from the other (full volume color) projects that I’m working on at the same time.

To fully mix my metaphors, it feels like I’m getting a more balanced diet visually speaking, and I’m loving the contrast in flavours.

(I just finished a particularly colorful project, which I’ll tell you all about next week)

I enjoy using text in my art.

Either beginning with a word that fills the page and ornamenting it into something new, or using scribbled thoughts and chunks of wordage to fill blocks and shapes.

In the last few days I’ve been adding some time lapse videos of the process to the Instagram posts – I love re-watching the way pieces like this take shape as black ink squiggles about on wet paper.

To keep track of how many paintings I’ve started I began numbering them, which lead me to listing some words & thoughts on the back (As inspired by the great artist & teacher, Jesse Reno). Sometimes it’s a color I want to remember, or a thought that’s shown up (future me might bury that under more paint, so I’ve left her a note just in case).

As the layers build up, the lists will grow. Every painting will have its own little chronology. Some might become a poem, or a name for the painting might emerge. We’ll have to wait and see 😉

Follow me on Instagram for daily updates 🙂
#100daysofQuietColor

Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

Join Me!

Get monthly-ish Studio Musings Newsletter.

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the first of 100 beginnings

10 days into the 100 days project, laying down the first layers of 100 paintings.

Ten days into the 100 day project, already I’m amassing a satisfying stack of paintings-to-be with first layers down.

My strategy this year is not to make a complete painting every day, but still to make 100 paintings in 100 days.

Because the way I work best is to have lots of pieces on the go at any time. I hop about between them and the ideas cross pollinate. These 100 days of Quiet Color are taking a familiar route, spiraling through layers and iterations of pattern.

Right now I’m all about watercolor and ink in swirly shapes (beginning with words which quickly evolve into more abstract shapes). Some already have a lot of tiny details,

(while these first colors are drying I move onto another one)

While others are washes and blobs of color – just a very beginning.

The quiet colors de jour are Payne’s Grey, Indigo & Sepia with a bit of Black & White gouache.

Follow me on Instagram for daily updates 🙂

#100daysofQuietColor

Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

Join Me!

Get monthly-ish Studio Musings Newsletter.

You can use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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what day is it?

If you read my newsletter yesterday, you’ll know I’m super excited about the 2021 #100dayproject…

I’ve got this BIG idea to make 100 new somethings and I’m all buzzed up about starting on Monday. Monday 1st Feb. Yep.

Until I read that it begins on Sunday 31st January!

So the prepping I planned for tomorrow got scooted into today, and I’m now set with my 100 pieces of paper and 76 million ideas, all ready to begin daily painting 🙂

Join me tomorrow in Instagram where I’m beginning #100daysofquietcolor

ps… sign up here if you want to see what else I sent in the newsletter 😉

Hi – I’m Mixy!

This is Mixy 🙂

I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.

I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.

You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too

Join Me!

Get monthly-ish Studio Musings Newsletter.

You can use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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3 Little Birds

Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,

Singin: don’t worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. don’t worry!

https://youtu.be/6Fudjk1ZH0k

This is the last in this series, you can catch the rest of them here

Be first to find out what’s going on in my colorful world with monthly-ish updates in my studio musings newsletter.

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A page over time

Inks dripped in water, bubble wrap, Posca paint pens, Sakura gellyroll pens. Good times. This is the next in the series from my 100 day project time lapse comps.

Catch the rest of this series here

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Metamorphosis & Metaphors

My 100 day project time lapse compilations are growing (you can check out the others over here) 

The pages in this book got layered over again and again – some began many months earlier – and then were then re-imagined many times in the 100 days.

This page began where I’d written the manifesto for the previous year’s 100 day project. An Actual Manifesto! Lawks!!

Never before had I felt called to write myself such a formal plan, but one morning last year I woke up from a vivid dream with an irresistible compulsion. Then a little over a year later I painted over it.

Watch how morphed over the 100 days here –

If you’d like to be first to see what’s happening in my colorful world, sign up for my monthly-ish studio musings newsletter.

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Outnumbered in my own story.

I’ve spent so many hours in the world between the pages of this book.

From the layers of drawings and doodles, to reliving the experience via editing the videos I made for the 100 days project, each page has developed a narrative.

Here is the next in the series of compiled time lapses (previous ones are here)

I work fast because one thought spawns a dozen new ideas and I have to run to catch as many as I can.

In this spread it was the stitches along the page edge that generated the triangular patterns, then the edges of the paint streaks which wanted more attention, emerging into solid shapes that demanded stripes, squiggles & spots.

Before I knew it, there were faces emerging.

I’ll be honest – right from the moment they began to appear – I wasn’t quite comfortable with this crowd.

As small and flat as their grinning faces were, I felt outnumbered, and until I redressed this balance I had an uneasy sense here.

Having looked thoroughly disgruntled throughout, the character who remained at the end took on a certain poise and dignity when the others left. Now she clearly owns this spread.

The rest of the characters in this art journal also have a destiny that’s yet to be fulfilled. Catch my August Studio Musings Newsletter to find out more. If you haven’t already done so – hop in here!

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