Last Day of January

 January is probably my least favorite month of the year and it always seemed soooo loooong.  Between the end of the holiday festivities and the beginning of the frigid winter weather, January always seemed so bleak and unending.  But the days, weeks and months seem to be passing more quickly than ever, and here it is, January 31st already!  Where did the month go?

I've managed to continue with my art journaling and have the next entry here.  In this exercise, I painted with watercolor paints and then lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the wet paint, welcoming crinkles and wrinkles.  When the paint dried and I peeled off the wrap, I added a little tree in the resulting lines.  Then I added the words "bloom where you are planted," and embellished with some stenciling and shading.  The left side is blank so I can write a little critique of this process/piece.

The watercolor/plastic wrap is very easy and produces an interesting effect.  I enjoyed the process and wonder how (or even if) it would work on fabric.  I like the happy accidents that occur (I didn't intend to draw a tree - it just looked like a tree, and the quote fit right in there among the rocks and roots).  I'd like to do exercises like this more often.

The last two exercises sparked the urge to get out some fabrics with high contrasts and start a new piece!  Here is a little sneak peek, below.   I'm trying to make this a quick exercise, not a long drawn-out, laborious creation, so I hope I can put a little more time into it in the next week or two.  Maybe a good approach would be to use the journaling as a warm up, then do a little stitching on this piece.

I recently read about a new book titled The Little Spark: 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity by Carrie Bloomston, and was lucky enough to find it on the New shelf at the library.  I've only read the first 3 or 4 ways, and so far some of it is a repeat of many of these books on creativity, with suggestions like set aside time, set aside a place, be generous with your materials, take a class, that kind of thing.  But I could probably use a little pep talk, and the author is very encouraging and positive and the book is full of great inspirational quotes.  So why not?