Wonder—52 Cards Project #42

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Wonder—52 Cards Project #42

This week the theme card for my 52 Cards Project is Wonder. With nights growing increasingly colder, we (and our cats) are retreating inside more. And yet, the wild outdoors calls. I noticed Leo, our young tabby the other night standing up from the floor to the bedroom windowsill to look outside and I realized that I’ve spent a fair share of time lately looking up from my sketchbook, my book, my ipad—to stare out the window too.

Winter is coming. The sky is very dark (with just a crescent of a moon). There’s plenty of things to worry about in the world these days…and yet, I do believe the universe works in mysterious ways…the wonder of what’s out there calls. The birds. The critters. The wind. the deep mystery of all that is alive. That is what Leo is looking for, I’m sure, and I guess when I think about it, so am I.

And neither of us wants to miss one minute of it!

***

A note about long term projects. This week

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Cliches are all you got? — 52 Cards Project #20

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Cliches are all you got? — 52 Cards Project #20

This week for my 52 Cards project, I had a bit of a problem…I thought I had one theme but it turns out that wasn’t right at all. The week has been one of trying to let go of my perfectionist tendencies, creatively, but also trying to let go of many attachments I’m holding on to in my life—the big one being that a good friend is moving away, and I really would rather she didn’t :-)

Change is hard.

In any event, ‘

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Just exploring

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Just exploring

In the last few weeks I’ve been in this weird exploration phase; trying out abstracts in watercolor, sketching randomly, trying out some zentangles. I haven’t shared what I’ve been making because honestly, everything feels a bit off and my enthusiasm is waning. But you know what? This is part of the creative process too. Getting lost. Losing your way for a while. Ebb and Flow. It’s natural.

So thought I’d share a tiny gallery of some of my latest experiments to remind myself—and maybe you need a reminder too: experiments—and failed experiments—are all part of the process.

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Muse — 52 Cards Project #19

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Muse — 52 Cards Project #19

This week’s theme for my 52 Cards Project, seemed just right: a lot of musing (verb), languishing in a state of muse (the noun)…and yes, looking for inspiration. Maybe I was also hoping that a Muse straight from the Greek otherworld might come along too. Calliope, Erato, Melpomene…Polymnia, Terpsichord, Thalia, Urania—someone help me!!

Seriously, it’s been another week of searching. I continued on, exploring and experimenting with abstracts and collage and sketching—and musing about the kind of art I want to make…

And in the meantime, another week, another theme card. Hmmm. Art I want to make.

(I think I’m done musing for now.)

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Spelunking — 52 Cards Project #18

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Spelunking — 52 Cards Project #18

There’s a story behind this week’s theme for my 52 Cards Project, of course.

It began with a book landing on my front step. I had preordered it months ago to both support an author I’ve long admired, Teresa Reed, and because the idea of making tarot cards sounded kind of fun. And I don’t know, sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways, but I was feeling kind of lost creatively last week—maybe you could tell—and that day particularly, the day the book arrived, I felt especially uninspired.

So I began thumbing

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Soft landing — 52 Cards Project #17

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Soft landing — 52 Cards Project #17

This week for my 52 Cards Project I knew my theme immediately. Having come home from a trip to Mexico Sunday, I was surprised to find that I experienced an uncommonly soft landing as I eased back to home life. This is not normally true when I go away as I’ve mentioned before, and from what I understand most people also have difficulty transitioning home from vacation.

So from that standpoint, it was an unusual week and the theme idea was easy.

But then, I struggled with

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Art making teaches us how to leap into the unknown

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Art making teaches us how to leap into the unknown

There was a time when first starting out on my art journey that I “had no ideas.” I didn’t know what to create next. These days, I have the opposite problem. Too many ideas crowd by head space. But you know what? Both lead to the same problem. Whether I approach the blank page with “no ideas” or “too many ideas”, I don’t know what to create next.

Intellectually I understand that it all comes from the same place—fear.

Fear of the blank page. What will I fill it with? What choices will I make? Will they be the “right” ones?

Bah! I have to catch myself in my own game. I find myself forgetting what I know to be true: “too many ideas” is a tricky cover for the same fear of not being good enough to pull off any any idea.

And the longer I’m paralyzed by fear of choosing, the longer

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