” The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.”
โ Rene Magritte .
This year’s #100dayproject is all about the doodle for me.
It’s my meditation, my therapy, my escape from the noise of my thoughts. For 100 days this year I’m sharing these little mark making experiments with time lapse videos and a bit of wordage about my process.
“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
โ Louis L’Amour.
This year’s #100dayproject is all about the doodle for me.
It’s my meditation, my therapy, my escape from the noise of my thoughts. For 100 days this year I’m sharing these little mark making experiments with time lapse videos and a bit of wordage about my process.
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. ๏ปฟ
โComing back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.โ ~ 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 ๐ ]
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 ๐
Meanwhile, If you want to be first to know about my colorful antics on and offline, join up for monthly news direct by email.
Processingโฆ
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
When I’ve got just a few minutes to spare I go to my art journal, find a blank page or a space, and doodle.
These are the background layers that inspire what comes next.
This is how I fill the scraps of time while I’m waiting for paint to dry, or a file to upload, or just waiting for ideas to land.
There’s a real freedom in knowing it will get covered in sketches or collage, more doodles and scribbles. I don’t plan this, I don’t even choose the colors, I use whatever pens, paints and brushes are there on my desk.
Sometimes you just got to let art happen.
Be first to see what I’m doing and making in the studio by signing up to my newsletter. Once a month or so I’ll drop in your inbox with more colorful tales!
Where do you find your inspiration? how do you stretch your creativity to include new patterns and shapes?
While I took a long pause from painting and drawing through the summer, seems maybe my muse melted in the heatwave,ย I was all out of inspiration for weeks.ย Instead I turned my attention to sewing and spent my spare time adding to this ongoing project .
Then, as suddenly as the ideas had dried up, they began to repopulate my thoughts.
The pages are beginning like usual, with splashes and washes of color from messy brush wipes, patches of color to use up left over paint.
BUT, the next step is the new part: every page is has space for drawing something I’ve beenย inspired by.
So often I take photos of patterns and shapes, so often I save images from artists and designers.
All the things that light up my imagination and set off a new train of doodles.
So I’ve got an enormous catalogue of inspiration tucked away in my phone, my bookmarks & favs.
When I get a spare few minutes, or when I want to warm up my drawing brain, I go to my art journal to add drawings and doodles inspired by someone or something in my list.
I was fascinated by the shapes and lines of these rocks on the beach in Cyprus last month. Dozens of photos of these wonderful wobbly lines. This is the first of a series they inspired.
Meanwhile, other artists have been drip-feeding ideas into my mind too.ย I invite their influence to stretch my skills, to let their style add new aspects to the way I doodle.
Alisa Burke creates fabulous flowery mandalas and often shares her process in Instagram. It’s such a meditative process, watching the patterns unfurl onto the page.
This is the first ofย my inspired by Alisa spreads.
art journal spread inspired by Alisa Burke
Where do you find your inspiration? how do you stretch your creativity to include new patterns and shapes?
If you’d like to be first to see what I’m making & doing, hop onto my email list here:ย
I’m here to bring a little bit of spinning bright colorfulness to your Friday, and to remind you today is the LAST DAY of the 21 Secrets Flashback Sale ๐
If this inspires you to play with more color, more mixed media, more art journaling: don’t forget today is your last chance to grab $21 OFF these 21 SECRETS online courses
‘Color, Color, Color!’ ‘Tell Your Story’
‘Tools & Techniques’
‘Embody’
+ The Best of 2014 & 2015
Keep up to date with all I’m doing and making with my newsletter. Once a month or so I’ll drop into your inbox with the inside stories behind the colorful things I’ve been playing with and what’s inspired me this month.
Your email is quite safe with me.I will not trade it for magic beans. I promise.
Flashback Sale! Heads up folks!
You can save $21 on 21 SECRETS 14-16 November. Get art journal inspiration and share the fun with the 21 Secrets online community
Use the coupon code FLASHBACK at checkout
for $21 off any of these 21 SECRETS editions.
Every edition of 21 Secrets contains a feast of ideas, new techniques for art journaling and secret tips & tricks from a diverse and talented team of teachers.
You’ll receive a downloadable eBook containing 25+ hours of videos and 150+ pages of full color photos, templates, and detailed clear instructions.
You’ll have instant, unlimited access to the material and classes, yours to download and keep forever.ย And bundles of support and love from the 21 Secrets online community.
“Art Journaling will lead you home to yourself. ย It will soften your fears and turn your insecurities into jewels. ย It will heal your heart and help you build a deeper relationship with your Truth. ย Art journaling is a catalyst for joy, creativityย and peace.”
Connie Solera, Dirty Footprints Studio
This is an affiliate link, by purchasing from a link in this post I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you! X
We’ve just arrived full circle on the latest trip around the color wheel that is TWELVTY, and I’m so excited how this project turned out!
Catch my newsletter this weekend to be first to see the completed 3D color wheel
In previous years of TWELVTY, my year long trip around the color wheel, I’ve created an art journal to document the process (you can see themย ย here & here)
2018 is the third time I’ve repeated the experiment. It never ceases to amaze me how much deeper this color exploration can take me into a creative flow.ย
This year I wanted to make something new – something more dynamic. So this year my 12 color project took the form of part art journal, part 3d mixed media sculptures.
We’ve just arrived full circle on our trip around the color wheel, and I’m so excited how this project turned out!
Catch my newsletter this weekend to be first to see the completed 3D color wheel in all its 3D-ness!
The journey to fill up my book for @sketchbkproject was almost as convoluted as the pages themselves. This is the Mixiest of mixed media!
The journey to fill up my book for the 2018 Sketchbook Project was almost as convoluted as the pages themselves. This is the Mixiest of mixed media!
If you find yourself in Brooklyn, you can see this IRL shelvedย at the address: 348.59-2 in the Art Library ย ย There’s a digitized version to see on their site too.
If you’d like to be first to see what I’m making and doing you’ll wanna catch my newsletters. I send these out once or twice a month with exclusive previews of my artings + links to all that I’m currently enjoying in the interwebs. Hop aboard here!
(Join up in June to snap up a massivenormous bargain in my Etsy Shop so I can make space for more new goodies coming soon)
How much time do you spend weaving between polarities?
Along the wiggling line of progress,ย between way too much and barely enough.
It’s not just me, is it?
How much time do you spend weaving between polarities?
Along the wiggling line of progress,ย between way too much and barely enough.
It’s not just me, is it?
At the end of last year I committed to a daily drawing practice:every day I’d work on improving my observation, coordination, imagination. Every day I’d give myself at least 5 minutes or so of drawing, not much more.
Just enough to open the flow of ideas at the start of the morning, to build on the muscle memory of drawing, to break through the first layer of inertia.ย
I really wanted to practice the drawings I find difficult, but to begin I was happy with doodles to see what emerged.
I toldย folk about this BIG plan of mine, I wanted the accountability. (I might have told you too.)
Just like the morning pages practice, the regular journaling habits, the daily yoga and meditation time, and all those wholesome promises I make myself…
I wonder to myself: is it the making of the promises, in and of itself, that makes me rebel?
“Who am I to tell me what to do??”ย
In the attempt to outwit my own ridiculous self sabotaging mind games, I ended up bending, breaking and rewriting every aspect of the plan:
Daily? nope. Drawing? meh, kinda, more splashing around in the shallow end of my abilities.
But what did emerge instead was the beginning of someย compassion for myself.
What if sloshing watercolor about, writing seemingly meaningless words, letting patterns fall through my hand was enough?
What if I was still creating, still making, still bringing out ideas into the open. What if that was enough?
What if my obstinance and non compliance to my own self-set challenge wasn’t just the precursor to another ‘Fk this, I can’t do it’ and instead I just kept moving, kept making, kept playing.
And free from the berating inner monologue, occasional actual sketching would take place.
In the spaces in between, I can see, this is a part of my process I need to work through, not against, not in spite of, but with. With an understanding that only I can afford to myself.
So page by page, I’ll continue.ย Do you have a daily creative practice? I’d love to know what shape it takes.
If you’d like more of my art based thoughts delivered right to your inbox once or twice a month, you can sign up here for updates
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until summer arrives.
Mixy's Art Blog 