trying to catch the ideas coming to me

This is the relationship I have with my creativity:

Magical, joyful love

I am young, the ideas are fresh, we wistfully co-create them into being.

What else is in there?

20 back to the flowers

I was inspired to paint the brown flowers by my watercolor box. 

I was running out of my favorite colors orange and red 

(cool and warm). The brown that came with the set reminds

me of old brown walnut ink with warm undertones.

The black is dark and inky and shiny when undiluted. 

I'll be making these for a while.

19 more folk art

Every year I like to attend this painting convention in Las Vegas. I have missed it for the past few years for various reasons (health and money), (time and space).

I love folk art painting, cut paper, tole, and fraktur. At this convention, I get to see all the new paints products and mediums.

I may not get a chance to attend this year, so while I was thinking about it at my drawing table, there were some birds I cut out with a yellow ombre paper, and some arrows I cut out with some of my painted papers.

It's hard to see, but I attacked the cut-outs with chalk, colored pencils and a white pen.

Leftover hearts from the Valentine project were not spared.

 I really don't want to clean my table 

there is so much inspiration there.

Joy

If my guides/ fairies, muses had their way I would create 

24/7 with no breaks for food or chores or friendship. 

Right now they have my attention in all areas of my life.

I asked reality to show me what is possible with my art. 

Apparently, the first thing I needed to know is, I can be very productive.

There are so many nuances, how healing this is for me, 

what a scary journey it is, and little glimpses 

of outcomes are being shown but not the whole picture yet

I want to see what else is in there.

17 valentine book

I started this creative session with painted papers. 

I took one of the papers from this session and freehand

doodled, folk art style flowers. 

I printed out some black and white stripes from 

my "made by me" scrapbook paper collection.

 The paper is regular printer paper with acrylic paint. 

The flowers are a light black watercolor wash.

That was my warm up.

I have been eyeing this paper Penny black "beau jardins" for a long time. 

The cardstock folds crisp, and the bright colors go well with the valentines.

 I scanned them and deduced the size to fit the narrow space.

I cut them out and now am working on completing the book.

I will post all the finished projects, or if they go bad,

(crosses fingers) I will update the results.

16 arrows

I created these primitive arrows because 

most of the ones I saw available for purchase 

were beautiful, imaginative, very boho 

but too perfect.

Fresh off the cutting machine, they have a primitive, 

animated quality that I was looking to capture.

The silhouettes have inspired other ideas.

small 

book layouts

valentines

15 painting flowers

Remember these? The tea/coffee stained crumbles and ironed papers.

This what happened

Brown watercolor and a drippy old brush. 

It was so much fun to paint these. I

completed page after page.

Continuing on, I cut small pages then watercolored
imaginary prim style flowers.

13 painted coffee / tea dyed paper

Doodle painting on my stained distressed paper.

Playing with flower shapes

Black paint as well as brown

creative joy

Interacting with creative energy fills me with joy.

The hard part for me is keeping my butt in the chair/studio. 

The easy part is romancing and playing with that energy.

Part of my 100 days project is to make 100 posts to create a record of me learning to interact with these energies.

Sorry to sound so vague, I'm learning. Baby steps.

14 Valentine will you be mine?

Today I'm starting with a few abstract paintings that 

I created a while back.I scribbled on the paper with black crayon. 

I painted over the scribbles, and when the paper dried, 

I scanned then at 300 dpi.

I created hand cut scalloped edges from various scraps. 

At one time I used scallop scissors, but I prefer the 

randomness and relaxation of hand cutting.

The scalloped trims were glued to the bottom of the squares. 

I made a lot of these and used my morning pages process 

to write on some of these.

The final results: embellished with arrows, and word tags.

12 Valentine -2

Folk-art, Prim, Cut-paper inspired valentines

I love arrows and tags

There are many beautiful arrow and boho arrow SVG files. 

I was so tempted to download some. I didn't see a primitive 

style, so I made my own.

more details on how to make your own, or buy mine

Arrows are here

Folk art shapes are here
The holes are punched with a hole punch

11 where I get my images thoughts and ideas

If this project is a success, the criteria will be creating my own elements, embellishments, and papers to use in my artwork. I want it to look like me. By that, I mean combinations of what I find interesting and beautiful and my own explorations.

Sometimes that may mean using printed scrapbook papers, Especially if they are dark or on sale.

I love cut paper. It is hard on my hands so I use a combination of hand cut and machine cut.

I love Fraktur and Pennsylvania Dutch hex art, Mexican folk art, and all decorative painting.

Another way this project will be a success is to try color palettes that I  am not normally drawn to. I want to stray off the beaten path of the color wheel, or a least explore it more deeply.

It takes time to put the elements together and finish things. A lot of behind the scenes work is trying things together lots of sketches and camera note taking.

10 Taking notes

Right now I am basically taking notes with my camera.

Creating pieces to combine with other pieces.

Lots of words, lots of looking.

9 painted papers

Painted paper edition

I pulled out the paints and my favorite substrate 

20lb regular ordinary bright 

printer/copier paper and paints.

I work fast and use whatever colors 

are left from the last time.

I separate them in color curated batches and 

use a few for morning pages.

The good ideas and insights tend to spill out at 

about a page and a half.