Back in May I joined the one hundred day drawing challenge on Instagram and chose florals as my theme. I had just gotten into painting flowers as England is filled with beautiful flowers that change all the time from spring though summer and I was inspired and motivated to improve. About a week in I started keeping these paintings in a sketchbook I dedicated for them and every day I added to the book. More or less. Today I finished the book a few weeks behind sketchdule and a few paintings over one hundred. It was a hard challenge to keep up with such a restrictive theme. But true to my goal I do feel like I improved a lot over the three months of sticking with it and painting my flowers nearly every day. I am also very happy to be done with that sketchbook as my collection of active sketchbooks has grown over the past few months and I am thrilled to have one less to think about cluttering my workspace and my brain.
Going with flowers for spring.
When I went to bed last night I thought that I was about to start a hundred days of self portraits. But in the eleventh hour I changed my mind. Spring rebirth and flowers it is for the next hundred days. Follow me on Instagram to see how I keep it up and keep it lively and interesting. My goal is to learn, strengthen my skills, connect with others and stretch myself. #the100dayproject
Starting with the simple daisey. We saw a lot of daiseys around Versailles.
Analyze what works, learn from it and ditch the rest.
For somebody that fashions herself as a bit of a minimalist I certainly am a pack rat when it comes to my art. I wouldn't have it any other way. Kept an obviously failed collagraph print that was just a hot mess and sat on it for weeks. Until I was ready to get out my watercolors and pens and transform it. It may not be a masterpiece but I learned a lot during the process of making it. In the future I can take pieces that aren't a disaster and transform them.
Easter stamping with my kids.
Not sure what we are planning on stamping for Easter. Never heard of cards for Easter or welcoming Spring. But my kids love stamps and they will love these homemade stamps. I've been focused on so many different mediums that it is causing me to take a few too many trips to the art store. While I am having great fun exploring watercolor and collagraph printing and drawing more than ever it is getting to be a bit of an expensive habit and not really inline with the minimalist philosophy. I don't see anything exactly wrong with buying supplies to make stuff. But I should question what I need before I do so. My storage space is far from unlimited. So for this week I will be focusing on materials that I have that I have been neglecting. Stamp making is easy and fun and something that I can do with the kids. These materials were literally sitting in a drawer untouched for years. I have not shown these new stamps to my girls yet. Can't wait to see their faces and see what we make together.
hand carved stamps on stamping material (the pink is the best) and firm drafting erasers
Finding my Joy
This cheerful little girl certainly helps whenever I am feeling down or stressed. Her copy next to mine. Another series to work on together? In the meantime I am going back and continuing to work on our last series of fantastical creatures designed by her and refined by me. Some of those are coming out on the blog and on Etsy later this week. Taking a break from them to work on other projects was a good idea as I learned from these other projects. Learning comes from all sorts of areas in life. Schooling, books, experiences and time all influence me equally.
My flower next to her copy.