Music as Inspiration

Yesterday I talked about putting together a prompt for my art journal group. Today I'm sharing that with you, because it IS Thursday and I do try to give you a prompt once in a while.
So, if you're in my group, you've seen this already. If not.. here's your challenge this week.

“Without Music, Life would be Blank to Me.” ~Jane Austen

     I need music like most people need air. The funny part? I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and as small children, my kids used to ask me “Please don’t sing Mommy.”  My dad had musical gifts and so does my husband and daughter.  I wish I could sing, I used to play the violin but it was always a struggle for me to make music, but oh, do I appreciate it.

    Music fuels my creativity like nothing else, in fact, if you put me in a room with some paint, some pens, a lot of paper and some music, I’m pretty sure I’d stay there indefinitely. If you send in wine and chocolate I’m sure of it!

     So this week I encourage you to embrace music as inspiration. Maybe you want to incorporate a song into your pages, or maybe you are inspired by a particular band. Maybe just create something based on what you are listening to. 

  

(forgive the pics, but that’s one of my first tangles ever!)

This wasn’t to be my week for the prompt, I’m pinch hitting here… so I don’t have my journal example done, but I have used music as inspiration multiple times in the past.

This was a guitar that I made for my Dad for Father’s day. 

As I said, he’s musical. I repurposed one that was well loved and it is playable, but had some scratch and dent. I used the song he used to sing me as a little girl, Country Roads by John Denver to tangle him something that was meaningful to us both, The music is around the outside and there’s a quote about it taking someone special to be a Dad on it, because remembering that song takes me back to being 7 years old. That’s what music does. (If you want to see more pics here's the post where I originally shared it) 

This week I’m actually working on a banjo, but my journal pages will be created using a favorite song that always inspires me to create.
I hope you have fun with this, and let it take you where it will.
Music can be a time capsule, a holder of emotions and therapy all at once. When combined with other types of art, it might be the most powerful force of all!

I can’t wait to see what everyone does with this!

*Not sure what happened with the Mr Linky, but I've replaced it!*

Creativity and overthinking... - Day 20!

Wow, time flies when you are having fun huh? It's been almost 3 weeks already! Today is Jan 20th and the Mandala Magic program I am participating in officially starts today!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!

I have been working on a journal page for what feels like forever. I don't know why I obsessed about it so much, it just... 

I really liked the prompt, I kept thinking I needed to do it "right" and that it needed to be really special. Plus I think part of me was hoping that if I kept snowflakes in my page, then maybe I could avoid getting more on the ground! LOL

I forget that my page IS really special simply because it's part of me. That's part of the art journal process. I tend to overthink projects, to obsess and make myself crazy from time to time and just generally make my own life difficult. I did finish it. 

I DO love it. 

I'm happy I spent the time I did, but I think I'm going to go out of my way to NOT do that again in my journal... the overthinking I mean. 

Whatever you are creating every day, make sure you are having fun with it! :) Art is a combination of creativity and play... at least that's how I get MY art. 

Glaze pens, crystal markers, mirrors and hand lettering.
The quote says:
"Like Snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice,
We are uncommonly and marvelously intricate in thought and action" ~Alice Childress

Do you do that too? Make yourself obsess over things or do you find it easier to go with the flow?

For those of you that know, I'm a CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) and I've decided to include some of the little Bijiouisms on my daily posts, because I want to spend more time reflecting on them myself. (Bijou is a creation of Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and you can learn more at Zentangle.com)

Bijou's thoughts about the Zentangle 
Method (and life).

Breathe

Breathing is very important to me. I breathe through my skin and through something similar to a human nose. If I get anxious, I remind myself to slow down my 
breath. I pay attention to inhaling and exhaling. It may sound simple, but it really helps me relax and focus.

Throwback Thursday!

Today's challenge is inspired by #Throwback Thursday.
I want you to think back to when you were a kid, what kind of creative activity did you love to do?
Was it crayons? Fingerpaints? Markers?
Did you like to play with chalk?
Today, do something to feed your inner munchkin. :)

I was inspired by the journal prompt I was given in my art journal group yesterday. We are supposed to cut snowflakes to remind us of our individuality. I am so excited by this idea... I LOVE papercutting and I live where it snows sometimes up to 8 months out of the year, so I am like a SNOW EXPERT.

I think I cut 100 snowflakes yesterday, plus it was a half day for my kids so it really felt like a kid-inspired day.

My journal is in progress, and you can't quite see what's going on in there yet (I'm using a lot of white on white which may not photograph so well) but I will share when that's done. For now...
A snowflake

Things never go as planned

Yesterday I was feeling messy. :D
Sometimes that happens.

This is actually much more pink that it appears in photos, but instead the photos instead prompted several people to ask if I'd been making sacrifices in my studio. :D
I promise not even to the gods of pens and paper.

It was the start to the second journal project I had, which involved including a quote.
I selected instantly a quote from Neil Gaiman...

Go and make interesting mistakes.
Make amazing mistakes
make glorious and fantastic mistakes
Break Rules
Leave the world more interesting for you being here.
Make.
Good.
Art.
~Neil Gaiman

First, I love him. I think he is amazing, and second.. that quote spoke to me from somewhere deep inside, which means it's the right one.

So that was to be these pages...except it didn't feel right. I made a face and went to set it aside to think on it and dropped my journal. Ooops. I'm kind of a klutz sometimes, and it fell open, onto the pages BEHIND my watercolor creation that may have been inspired by my 12 hour criminal minds marathon.
And I made another face...
Because I saw, all along the left side of one of the pages a smear from my red watercolor. Dang it. On my nice, pretty, supposed to be CLEAN pages behind it. Ugh. Double Ugh. Now I wasn't happy with 2 things in my journal and I was only 4 page in...
And the inner monologue starts...
The little voice in my head that I like to keep locked in the closet started to say things like, "That isn't supposed to be there, take those pages out, they're not good enough, isn't this the 2nd time in 10 days you've messed up in something you are supposed to post? You keep making mistakes...."
Cool me responds back with... "Whoa there brat voice, what did you just say?"
And then I realized... I'm making a lot of mistakes ART.
With that, comes things i don't like. I once had someone tell me that all art goes through an ugly stage, an awkward, teenage, adolescent stage and that my quote was about it being ok to make mistakes.
So I came up with this. I messed the pages up a little more. Every word has something I'd have "fixed" in the past. I splattered some ink, and then I did in fact ooops again and closed the journal when I didn't mean to so it transferred.. and came up with a glorious mess.

I don't really like it, but I think I will. And whether or not I "like" it right now.. I love it.  I am going to add in pieces of art that didn't go as planned throughout the year. Things that in the past I'd have relegated to the back of a drawer or tossed in frustration. They now have a place on these pages.. the pages that give me permission to make mistakes.
That's a really nice gift to have given myself.
This art journal thing might be pretty good for me.

Thursday- that means a prompt!

Good morning friends!!!!
Yesterday I played with pine cones. I think they're fascinating but I can't paint them. I really WANT to but they never turn out right. I think they are a really cool symbol of a lot of things so it's probably something you are going to see pop up in my work here and there.
Fun fact of the day...
Did you know that pine cones close up to protect their seeds when it's going to rain? So if you are ever in the woods, wondering if it's going to rain and you see a bunch of closed pine cones, chances are you are going to get wet.

Ok, so I mentioned before that I belong to a group that is doing some art journaling which is new for me, because I've always just been a sketchbook kind of girl who keeps a diary to write in. We get prompts every week to help us on our adventure.

I am mulling over this weeks so that I know where I want to dive in.

I did pick a quote for this weeks page yesterday as well. 

“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman

I think that will be a fun one to work with, I'm fantastic at making what I initially view as mistakes, that often turn out to be exactly what I end up liking best about something! I also just mess up a lot :D

I promised that on Thursdays I would come up with a prompt for you to use if you'd like, or to not.... entirely up to you!

Today, I'd like to encourage you to find a "mistake" in your creative world and change it. Maybe it's a drawing/painting you discarded some time ago, perhaps a technique that you gave up on... a dinner you burnt several times...

Something. Whatever you thought of when you read my little prompt there, that's the thing you should think about working on today!

So, once you have your mistake, how can you turn it into something besides a frustration? Zentangle likes to say there are no mistakes... one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp when I see something on my page that I don't love, but let's embrace it and find a way to turn it into something amazing!

I have a piece of paper that I was going to make a mandala on, I don't know why I kept it because nearly my first mark, my pen exploded. 

It'll be fun to see what I can make out of that.

#WhimsybyKelly2015 Challenge- Begin as you mean to go on

Good morning!!!! Happy New Year!

"Begin as you mean to go on...."
I don't know who said it historically... or if they even did, but probably a lot of people did, I'm sure there's a meaningful quote, but I don't need to look it up, because I know who said it to me. 

Two teachers said it to me, oddly enough not at the same time and neither was an art teacher.
Mr. Feltges taught English and Mr. Starr was my drama teacher. Both left a lasting impression.
In fact, those are some of the wisest words ever spoken to me I think. 

Set out to begin things that way you mean to continue them, let others and yourself know what your standards and expectations are, do it the way you plan on doing it RIGHT FROM THE START.
It's almost the start of a new year.
"Begin as you mean to go on... "
So while I won't be setting any actual resolutions, I will be making conscious choices, especially today and in the next couple of days or so as to how I want and expect my life to go for the next year and in general going forward. Somehow not looking at it as a resolve, but looking at the choices as a new direction makes all the difference for me.

How are you going to start the beginning of your new year? Will you begin as you mean to go on?

I plan to focus on my creativity and my positivity this year, which is one of the reasons I started this challenge. 

So, let's BEGIN.

Today is the 1st. A brand new year, a brand new start. Our brand new journey on this challenge. Thanks for joining me, and welcome! 

A few extra details that weren't in yesterday's post (I'll go in and add them as an edit so everything is in one place for reference)
Please link directly to that day's submission, not just your blog or your pinterest. Specific url makes my life much easier. :)
I added it yesterday but it bears repeating, keep it clean. I am ok with some nudity if your art calls for it, art is art but anything pornographic will be deleted. I reserve the right to decide what is porn. (I'm pretty liberal, but there may be some kids participating, let's make it comfortable for everyone)

Make friends here! Visit one another's links, take a peek at what they are creating! BE INSPIRED!

Please use #whimsybykelly2015 if you are sharing on twitter, instagram, facebook, G+ that way I can search that # and if it's visible I can find it!
You can go back and add art to a previous day ANY time you want to during the year but after that week I won't "count" it towards any monthly prizes. It's just too hard to keep track. It will still count towards any yearly prizes though and it also gives you bragging rights.

Works in progress count. Don't feel you have to finish something to be able to post it. But don't keep posting something that doesn't show progress. :)

I am going to try and put my post up every morning before 9 some days it might include my art... some days it might tell you what I'm going to do.
Some days there may be a prompt... but I only promise one prompt per week (on Thursdays) and even then it's going to be pretty vague. I am not looking to direct your art, I want to be here to encourage you to create. Look for a prompt on Thursdays.

 I don't really want to work ahead of all of you, but I'm considering working 1 day ahead so that I have something to show you. Here is something I have finished to end 2014. It's a reminder to me to focus on things that are important and it's my first ever Opus tile (10x10) which is awesome because I love working in that size, so having Zentangle® tiles in that size made me really happy.  

I have 2 brand new "New Year Projects" that I am starting today though, so I wanted to start them on the 1st, so I'll be working on these today. 

Carole Ohl's Tangle a day 2015 calendar (which you can buy here if you are interested)

and

An art journal I am working on with other CZTs. This is  a Mixed Media travelbook by Cachet. Hopefully I'll like it, I've not used it yet. :D 

Alright, Let's do this.

Your prompt? 

Begin.