The 100 Day Project 2018

Have you heard about #The100DayProject?  This is a great way to take on that project or practice you find yourself putting off. 

Using a Pocket Sized Decomposition Book

I am joining for the first time with the support of an amazing tribe, Get Messy Art Journal Community.

What is your 100 day project? 100 days of creating collages in my "No Paint Required" pocket  sized Decomposition Notebook.
What does success look like for you? Ultimately, I would like to have 100 pages of collages, but the end goal is to get into the habit of creating every day.
What do you hope to achieve with the project? Make a habit of creating everyday.
Where will you be sharing?  #the100dayproject, #100dayproject2018, #nopaintrequired
How will you make sure that you reach your goal? I have printed a 100 day calendar to mark off each day when completed.

You can find these printable calendars HERE and HERE.

The official kickoff is April 3rd however the 100 days begins when you begin.  So... are you ready?
If you are joining in please leave the hashtags you are using in your comment so I can follow your journey and cheer you on.

The Practice of Releasing the Day's Stress with Paper Collage

Inspired by THIS post by #mkranthony, I began a practice of creating small paper collages to help release the day's stress after a long day of teaching. 

I chose to use a pocket-sized Decomposition Book which has thicker paper to hold the bulky elements.

I'm learning to follow my intuition when pulling out the scraps, letting go of the need for it to "all make sense", sometimes adding found items from the day such as stickers, garment tags, or wine bottle closures.  And there is added benefit of finding a use for all those small scraps of paper, lace, and ribbon I have accumulated.

This collage was inspired by a quote in Everyday Positive Thinking by Louise L Hay:

"When life presents more challenges than you can handle, delegate to God.  He not only has the answer, He is the answer. ~ Tavis Smiley.

 What practice do you have in place to help release the day's stress?  I would love for you to share what works for you.

WOYWW: First day of Christmas break!

My desk has seen a rapid turn over of projects this week.  One day it is covered in Christmas reds, 

Early Saturday morning painting session I call Get up. Get dressed. Paint.

then in paint, 

Allistair hoping I will walk away so he can play with all that ribbon.

then with all sorts of blue ephemera, paper and ribbon for my Winter Blues art journal.

My lack of focus is mainly due to stress but happily today is the first day of Christmas break!  With the constant barrage of fear mongering gone, I hope to find some organization and inspiration to begin the new year.  

Texture journal

Christmas tags

Happy Winter Solstice!

However you celebrate this week, my wish for you is it is full of family, friends, health, and joy! 

Merry Christmas!

Joining up with What’s on Your Workdesk? Wednesday where desk snooping is not only allowed but all part of the fun!

Get up. Get Dressed. Paint: Left brain overdrive!

Painting with Rae Missigman's 15 MINUTES OF MIXED MEDIA proved challenging this week; not the page itself but allowing myself to play.

I can tell when my left brain is in charge, and it certainly was today.  Yesterday was a hard, difficult, frustrating day.  I came home grumpy, in tears; taking a shower as soon as I walked in the door in an attempt to wash it all away.  Obviously it didn't as when I got up my left brain was still in overdrive.

Noticing

I notice that when the left brain is in charge :

• things get put away as soon as I am done using them
• I'm frustrated, gritting teeth
• always wiping my hands clean with a baby wipes
• don't pay attention to the music
• redo things if they are not "perfect"
• take twice as long to get the page completed

Here my circles weren't "perfect" circles so I traced a circle then recut them before gluing them on the page.

I knew I was doing it and my right brain was screaming "Just leave them" but my left brain argued, "No! They have to be circles!  Her's are circles!"

The carnage: almost everything is put away

Notice how neat it is in comparison to theses past sessions:

The important thing is I showed up and I painted irregardless of whether the experience was as enjoyable as it could be.  I know I will always have to deal with this.  Most left brain people don't allow their right brain out to play, and certainly not painting!  I have a friend who teaches chemistry and she too is struggling with this.  I finally got her to start painting again and she having a blast!  So while it's a struggle, it's possible.

 The H₂O pen I used for the India ink is too thick of a brush; I need to get a thinner one as I like using it and want to incorporate it more in my journaling.

Joining Paint Party Friday where having paint under the fingernails is the norm.  What colors are under yours?

Playing along with Carolyn Dube’s Let’s Play.  Won’t you play along with us?

Get up. Get Dressed. Paint.

It’s rare to start with a blank page but for this week’s 15 MINUTES OF MIXED MEDIA©

with Rae Missigman that is how this page started.  It was an easy going page without much thinking; simply painting then using the end of the paintbrush to scratch in some blooms in the wet paint.

The carnage

I used this page to remind myself I am a good teacher and to not allow the powers in charge to take that away. To catch you up, I have now been moved 3 times this school year.  Two weeks into the school year I was transferred from teaching Chemistry in the high school into an elementary school teaching science to 6th and 7th graders.  Five long, stressful weeks later (and just after I was getting the hang of things) I got word I was being transferred back to the high school to teach Biology, Physics, and 7th and 8th graders in the alternative ed program: again, no experience in this.  Last week I packed up my stuff, yet again, and moved.  This week I started with a whole new set of kid learning the ropes of teaching alternative ed students.  *sigh...

Noticing

She removes more paint than I seem to be able to by scraping an old credit card over the wet paint, leaving her page with much more white space than mine.  I also find I’m hesitant to wipe up too much of the paint yet I always like her finished page better than mine because of that. 

Free Mixed Media Workshop

Wednesday via a fellow blogger I discovered Permission to Play- a Free Mixed Media Workshop with Carolyn Dube.  Yesterday I watched the introductory lessons, downloaded and painted my Permission to Play permission slip.  My plan is to use this class to play in paint on week nights when I normally do very little creating.  Winter is a struggle for me and my hope is to begin a practice of spending time in the evenings creating to ease the stress after a long day of teaching.

Do you want to play along with me?

Joining Paint Party Friday where having paint under the fingernails is the norm.  What colors are under yours?

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday: Working in the Early Morning Light

Taken at my favorite time of the day…when the early morning light begins streaming in the windows filling the dark craft room as I work.  I am an early riser; 3:30 is the norm.  On weekends like this I make a pot of coffee then walk upstairs to my waiting craft room.  I flick on the OttLites, the computer, sip my coffee and begin painting or art journaling.  I will work until Good Morning America comes on at 8 o’clock or I feel I’ve worked as much as I can. 

On my desk you can see the newly arrived Dylusions paints.  They scare me a little as they are in pots which means open paint for kitties to put paws into or the clumsy artist to spill.  I plan to paint with them Saturday so I’ll let you know.  Sitting on the left is a new pad of scrapbook paper.  I would have preferred an 8.5 x 11 pad but this is how it came so I make do.  I mainly use it in the altered book you see spread out on my desk.  The 2 plastic boxes are filled with paper, old books, postcards, ribbon and an odd assortment of ephemera to use in this book.  The book pages are from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book Gift from the Sea (free from the library giveaway cart).

Waking up to my mind racing has once again become the norm.  I try to stop it but it seems as though gravity takes over and the thoughts gain momentum as I awaken more fully.  Weekdays I have to get up and finish the lesson plans I was too exhausted to complete the night before.  I would prefer to art journal every morning, even if only for 15 minutes.  That is my goal, to get ahead and be able to have time for myself the first part of the workday so I can release the runaway train of thoughts that haunt me when I awaken.

 

This book is helping me to find my own style.  As I progress through the pages, I am finding what suits me as an artist.  Here, I’ve given up typing out my thoughts on the computer, printing them, then gluing them in.  Too time consuming!  My impatience to put the page together in one sitting has forced me to slowly learn to accept my handwriting. 

Today is the first day of fall.  I'm sad as the summer seemed to speed on past without my being able to enjoy much of it.  This weekend I will have to get my fall art journaling supplies out.  Funny, as most of you deskers are thinking Christmas by the looks of what's on your desks.   

Joining up with What’s onYour Workdesk? Wednesday where desk snooping is not only allowed but all part of the fun!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday

My desk early Sunday morning cluttered with an odd mixture of stuff.   I was trying to catch up over the weekend.as I had several ATC's to complete for swaps.  I cut out a piece of the wedding veil remnant to use for texture. The the fairy collage sheet is out to create something that begins with F. The bag of Halloween feathers is a recent purchase.  I needed an orange feather for that pink and orange rolo last week and did not have one.  BTW, the recipient of that rolo thought I nailed it with that orange game card.  That orange paint on the paper towel is from my painting the previous morning.  I have a painting practice which I have properly named, Get up.  Get dressed. Paint.  Saturday mornings I have a regular painting date with my paints (and coffee). You can click on the tab at the top to see the pages in my painting journal.

Which leads me to some unexpected news:   I moved to a new building and am now teaching in an elementary school.  A HUGE change for me. I have always taught high school with some middle school mixed in but now I am teaching 6th and 7th grade.  Instead of listening for bells to tell me when the end of class is I have to watch the clock.  Instead of students walking freely through the halls to their classes I have to line my students up and walk them everywhere. At the end of the day instead of kids rushing to meet buses I now have to escort them one-by-one to their parent who is waiting in their car in the parking lot.  Yesterday was my second day and it all feels so overwhelming! You can read about how this all came about HERE.

Swapping

Butterfly Fairy: ABC letter ATCs - Make Up #2 Letter F

 ABC letter ATCs - N Nest

Joining up with What’s onYour Workdesk? Wednesday where desk snooping is not only allowed but all part of the fun!

Get up. Get dressed. Paint.

The story behind this week’s page

This week was the first week of classes for students.  Yesterday was truly a day of mixed bag of emotions, the ultimate roller coaster!!!   In the middle of teaching a chemistry lesson,the principal entered my room, told me I was being transferred.  I was to report to the other building immediately and the other teacher was to take over.

I have been trying to get this transfer and wanted it badly but I did not expect it to happen in this manner.   I expected to have time to pack.  I am happy to finally get out of that building and be somewhere I am welcomed, respected, and wanted; where professionalism is honored and consistency rules the day.  So yesterday afternoon my dear hubby helped me move about a third of my stuff into my new classroom. While creating this page I released all the emotions of yesterday, allowing them to be.

Painting with Rae Missigman’s  15 MINUTES OF MIXED MEDIA©

One of the challenges is recreating her “mop page”, a page where she tests new stencils,  new paint colors and uses left over paint she can't bear to throw away.  She starts with these pages to avoid that dreaded “white page”.  

The carnage

What I learned

•   Use Dylusions ink spray like a watercolor to fill in spaces & loops in handwriting; this adds a pop of color.
• When I show up ready to release the anxiety it is easier to find the words to scribble (finding words to scribble always seems to be a problem for me)

I feel lighter now.  There is anxiety but it's different.  That black cloud that has been hanging over me since I was in that building (2006) is gone.  It's been there for so long it became a part of me, pushing down, the pressure not allowing me to breathe.   This new anxiety is more about not knowing, making the transition from teaching 10th, 11th, and 12th graders to 6th and 7th graders.  Comeback next week to see how my first week goes!

Joining Paint Party Friday where having paint under the fingernails is the norm.  What colors are under yours?

Laying the pathway for change

The sense of calm and purpose I found over Christmas break diminished not too long after going back to school and I just haven’t been able to get myself to move past the stress and repression to make any changes.  After a long conversation yesterday with a friend I realized I was getting in my own way. I needed to release the thoughts that continued to cycle in my mind, the worries that were keeping me from restful sleep, waking me with my mind racing.  This constant ruminating was keeping me in a continual state of fight or flight.  Why was I allowing this?  

Part of the answer was fear.  In the back of my mind knowing some other eyes other than mine could read about my internal struggles was preventing me from releasing them.  Yet holding them in was holding me back.   And while I hated the way things were making the needed changes scares me even more. Something had to be done.  Yesterday I purchased a plain journal, one of my favorites to work in for smaller projects.  I wanted clean, line-less pages so I wouldn't feel the pressure to have to write.  And I wanted a small number of pages so I could finish it by summer. 

I wrote, released…breathed.  Then I painted over it, stenciled, painted some more, then doodled.   A start, yes, but starting is never the problem, sticking with it, reaching an end, this I’m not good at.  Again, fear sets in, I give up and the cycle continues.  How can I make this turn out differently?

Regaining My Focus

Noticing the change of light... days stretching...a little longer each day

I found my focus for this blog… for my life … got lost.

It got lost in the stress of a job that daily became repressive and authoritarian

It got lost in the resulting depressive state from the continuous dysfunction and idiocracy

It got lost creating for others and not for me

It got lost from built up resentment

It took most of the holiday break to find it … when I did…

excitement returned

stress melted away

resentment cooled

creativity flourished

ideas coalesced

energy soared

My creative endeavors are now for me with projects I am excited about.

Utopia ended before I was ready – would I ever be?  Reality returned but I had armed myself with an arsenal to combat the constant flogging.  It’s not perfect but I notice a difference. I found that the excitement of sharing my life, here, has returned.

Returning to sharing my finds with Kim at Friday Finds