Say Yes to Life, WTJ 55-58

Say Yes to Life
55/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic
(this and all following images taken from my Wreck this Journal, by Keri Smith)

I've been working on a lot of things. Some of these things are artistic in nature. Some of them are business. Some of them are daily living. And some of them are about higher purpose, sense of self, balance and grounding.

I still feel guilty counting these images in my total creativity challenge project, but I've been putting a lot of energy into my Wreck This Journal, as I just realized our book club is almost over.

I paint and collage and draw and doodle and ponder all day long, even while the kids are awake.

When I first heard of this book, I didn't think I needed it. I knew how to do an art journal. I knew how to deconstruct my life and how to get over the perfectionist hump.

But these are not things you learn once and then don't have to bother with. The amazing thing about living is that lessons are never ending. Nothing is static. What you think you have mastered merely becomes the stepping stone for what you have next to learn.

This image here is an idea I've been working on in my life for a while now. After painting it here, I think it might make a nice print. Hmm. Maybe something for my shop?
Say Yes to Life/Yes
diptych

Slowly, I am starting to get my groove back.

It's so crazy how everything can be going so smoothly, and something puts a bump in your smoothness and all of a sudden the whole road gets rocky.

Maybe it's just coincidence, maybe it's being thrown off a rhythm.

Whatever it is, I'm working on getting the positivity back, the center, and the momentum.

Start (just begin) (detail)
56/100 in 100 creative challenge (part of diptych)
Pitt artist pens, gold paint pen

It's really hard to see how that path is going to go when you are just beginning down it. You don't see how you will get to that long distant goal of the cradling hills.

But you just have to start. You just have to keep going in your baby step, slow going, non stop line of life. It goes on twists and turns.
Start (just begin)
56/100 in 100 creative challenge ( diptych)
Pitt artist pens, gold paint pen

I have no idea what this says. Something about the journey and keep on going.

Well, what else are we gonna do? Lay down and give up?

"Just keep swimming" in the immortal words of Dory the fish.

Blind Map
57/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white and gold paint pens

More pages about the journey. About being lost. About looking for sign posts along the way.

Are there any?

I think there are, but they don't always mean what we think they mean.

Hard things are what you need. Easy things don't last. What you thought would be simple gets oh so complicated. What you thought would be complicated just kind of slips into your life with ease.

Yet we keep looking for these blind maps, trying to find the way in the darkness.

What if we aren't lost at all?

What if we aren't lost at all?
Make a Mess and Clean it Up
58/100 in 100 creative challenge
Mixed media, diptych

I've been doing this page for so long I don't remember what all I did to it, what media I used. It's a blind self portrait and it is many many layers of futzing. That's my interpretation of making a mess and cleaning it up. I started a portrait with the intention that it would be a mess, and I would keep going with it until it felt right and was no longer a mess.

Does it even look like me? I don't think that much, but that's not really important.

Maybe sometime I'll post the various stages of this one, and the reverse side of the page, which is really cool actually. Maybe I'll do something to the reverse and finish it off as a stand alone page.
Make a Mess and Clean it Up
58/100 in 100 creative challenge
Mixed media, diptych (detail)

This morning I felt the urge and knew what to do with the facing page. It was her hair, it was her mind, it was the message. So I drew it in and wrote in the words.

I like the way it turned out and I think it goes well with the highly worked/layered portrait of the other side.

It says

I am learning the lessons I need to learn and it's not easy. i learn to make my messes and to clean them up. failure is temporary.

say yes.

trust your strength.

Believe in yourself.

I'ma trying.

I have many more pages from the book. I two or three paintings in various stages of working. I have no time to post. I have no room to post!

I will have to be backed up until next time.

Oh well, I believe it will all come out all right.

Keep on wrecking. Keep on creating.

Keep on swimming.