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 š
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 š
Hi – I’m Mixy!
This is Mixy š
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
My 100 day project timeĀ lapse compilations are growingĀ (you can check out the othersĀ over here)Ā
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.Ā 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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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.
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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Since I finished my 100 days project I’ve been editing together some of the time lapse process videos to look back at the evolution of these pages. Here is part 5.
Ink over gesso never fails to make me happy.
water splashes on ink on gesso make magical patterns
In this spread I began by gessoing over a page of scribbled color. Then came pebeo colorex inks running through the gesso texture, then ecoline brush pens for their juicy transparent colors that layer like nothing else.
If I’d left this page there, I would have been happy, but this challenge involved pushing through a few ‘finished already’ stages into new territory, in this case it was with water-soluble graphite and watercolor pencils, then lastly a white chalk marker.
Here is the second in my series of time lapse compilations. Wanna see previews of the next of this series + what’s coming next after this enormous project?
Here is the second in my series of time lapse compilations from the 100 day project (the first one is here)
Wanna see previews of the next of this series + what’s coming next after this enormous project? It’s all in my studio musings newsletter next week. Hop aboard here!
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Over the weeks and months these pages changed beyond recognition. This is a snapshot into the evolution.
This week we reached the end of the #100dayproject. Every day for over 3 months I posted my daily doodles to Instagram. Yikes!
Sometimes just photos, but for the most part, I shared little 30 second or so time lapse videos.
This is an art journal I’ve been doodling back and forth through for a long time. Every day I’d find a page that wanted something new, different colors or just had a space to fill. I’d scribble down words that caught my attention in a podcast or song lyrics, I’d sketch and play and add bits of scraps of stuff from my desk.
There are no rules in a book like this, nothing can go *wrong*. It’s all subject to change, it’s all ephemeral.
Over the weeks and months these pages changed beyond recognition. This is a snapshot into the evolution.
Evolving ideas
You can see a full flip through of this book by joining up for my newsletter. I share monthly (-ish) musings from my studio, first looksies at what I’m making, and exclusive discounts in my online sales, but if that’s not your jam you can unsubscribe at any time.
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It’s that time of year again , Instagram is full to bursting of 100 day projects. I love the variety of ideas that populate this challenge. This is my third year of participating. ļ»æ
āComing back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.ā ~ Sir Terry Pratchett
It’s that time of year again, Instagram is full to bursting of 100 day projects. I love the variety of ideas that populate this challenge.
Previously…
In 2017 I missed the start date by a long way. I didn’t know this was an annual event, or anything much at all except it was a hashtag that intrigued me. I took the next 6 months to complete 100 daily pages of art journal.
In 2018 I was all amped up to go from day one. I decided on a hugely ambitious project. I even wrote myself a manifesto. For real!By day sixty-something I was utterly spangled and my group of 100-day-canvasses* are still ‘resting’ in a not quite complete stage.
*that’s 5 canvasses for the 100 days. Not 100 canvasses. I’m over ambitious, for sure, but not that much…
I’ll circle back round to them some day. When they’re ready.
Opting Out…
This year I had no plans to join the project.
I love watching everyone else’s projects in all their iterations play out and develop. I’m fascinated by the broad reach of the themes; the devotion and the grace; the patience and the determination. [Is this you? Leave a comment below with your IG handle so I can follow you too š ]
My 2019 is a time of stepping away and of setting aside, I’ve been deliberately disengaging from social media, opting out and resisting. I’m doing my darnedest to play more offline than online to help de-frazzle my achy brain.
This year I planned watch and absorb instead.
Oh. Surprise!
So no-one was more surprised than I was to find myself getting all zinged up on April 2nd – day one of the project – when I determined the thing I wanted to do more than anything else was to join in again!
I made a commitment to myself already to make some sort of art every day in this little Moleskine book. It’s been with me over a year and I especially while I’m still a bit high on the fun of the sketchbook project book I just completed (more on that soon) this feels like a gift of accountability- momentum I just can’t ignore.
Will I last out for 100 days? I’ll post updates here as and when [ or you can check the daily doodles I add on Instagram ] for now I’m enjoying it, and that’s all that matters to me š
Meanwhile, If you want to be first to know about my colorful antics on and offline, join up for monthly news direct by email.
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If you’d like to help me clear space to make more colorful things, take a hop over to my Etsy store …HALF PRICE while stocks last
Offer Closes 31 July 2018! Last chance, folks!Ā
Last year I created some postcards from from drawings, including these from the 100 day project I did last year.
If you’d like to help me clear space to make more colorful things, take a hop over to my Etsy storeand scoop up one of the last postcard sets. Especially for you lovely folks who subscribe to my newsletter, they are HALF PRICE while stocks last.
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If there’s one thing that keeps my creative imagination alight, its progressing a few pieces in parallel. Sometimes a piece has to sit and dry, or sometimes it needs just simply to sit.
If there’s one thing that keeps my creative imagination alight, its progressing a few pieces in parallel.
Sometimes a piece has to sit and dry, or sometimes it needs just simply to sit.
It might be in (one of) the ugly phases, uncooperative, or just tired and needing a rest.
Ideas need to incubate, assimilate, to marinate in wet paint or to settle amid the layers of thought processes and ideas.
Among these layers of color and pattern are layers of construction and deconstruction.
Themes emerge and submerge, continually spiralling around, cross pollinating each other as they go.
Time finds their place, turning in turns they cycle into their next phase.
(I often feel like I’m on the outside looking in while this happens)
These images are snapshots of the paintings I’m making for the 100 day project. You can see them develop day by day in little time-lapse snippets over in Instagram#100LayersByMixyĀ
These little videos, in turn, are combining into longer video stories.
The first is out there in the youtubesalready, but for exclusive first viewings you’ll need to clickety-hop aboard my email list right here:
Today we reached the quarter way mark, day 25 of the #100dayproject.
To celebrate I’ve joined up the videos of the first layers of the first canvas I began working on. It’s still a work in progress, but already it’s been through so many evolutions.
The 100 Day Project 2018
I like an outrageously crazy challenge as much as the next person.
I’ve been known to dive into some over ambitious projects without thinking it all the way through (for risk of talking myself all the way out in the process).
But even I knowĀ while I’m not in my studio every day,Ā finding time for painting every day for 100 days isn’t realistic.Ā I listened to my inner adult, and together we came up with a plan:
My 100 day project is to paint as often as I can, and post an update every day for 100 days.
To make that possible and prepare I let these paintings take over a long weekend at the start of the month in order to get ahead.
(Best. Weekend. Ever!)
If you haven’t seen the posts, I’ve beenĀ time-lapsing the process to share on Instagram.
This filming shrinks down the rate of progress to just 10%, making a half hour of painting flash by in 30 seconds! It’s fascinating to watch it back, to literally watch over my own shoulder as I paint. I follow my instincts and don’t plan what I’ll paint, so the images evolve out of nowhere, and then recede back under the newer layers.
Today we reached the quarter way mark, day 25.
To celebrate I’ve joined up the videos of the first layers of the first canvas I began working on. It’s still a work in progress, but already it’s been through so many evolutions.
I’ll be making little videos like these for all 5 paintings as I go along.
If you’d like an exclusive preview of these, and other things I’m making, join up for my email newsletters. At the time of typing, they go out just once or twice a month, so I won’t be flooding our inbox!
Mixy's Art Blog 