Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

What’s happening in your creative world this summer? I find it’s important to find a technique that lights your fire and makes you want to return to your art table every chance you get. Do you know what I’m talking about? Like when you get up 15 minutes early just so you can make a little progress on that painting, or stay up much too late working on that collage. I’m not saying you need to be in a constant state of inspiration, but feeling excited about your art will help you build a sustained art practice and creative self-care habits. Right now I’m having adventures in paper and fluid paint.

My Accordion Journal Flip Through

I’ve continued to have a blast discovering what I can do with my high flow acrylic paints, gel pens, hole punches, and mixed media paper. I’ve realized that not only can I use these beautiful little paintings as the centerpiece in my tiny Moleskine journal,  but I can also cut my accordion journals to create almost sculptural pieces. While I enjoyed my sculpture class, I would never have said it’s my forte in visual art, so discovering these techniques has been a surprise, and a delight. I’m happy to share my adventures in paper and fluid paint with you:

Making art is always interesting because I find there’s often a moment in the process of making an art piece where I feel my choices are too safe, and I realize they don’t give me that fire of inspiration. That’s always a sign that I need to take some risks. For your art to be really alive and energizing, you have to be willing to make risky choices and chance ruining the piece.

If you are not sure what sets your heart on fire, why not find out? Search online for art techniques that spark your interest, take an art class in your community or online, go to museums, look through art books, and give yourself permission to be a beginner and try something new. That’s how you feed the creative fire. Sometimes to get to the point where you are willing to let go and be a beginner, you need to get the inner critic taken care of first, if that’s the case for you, check out this post first.

Adventure is adventurous because there’s an excitement attached to the fear. There are always risks and mistakes along the way on a journey, don’t you think? So why not in our art? And for that matter, why is it not okay to feel disappointed at times with what we create? I think it’s unrealistic to expect that everything we make will be  “good.” We need to expand our idea of what a “good” art process is, instead of focusing so much on good art. After all, most of us are making art in order to have fun, so why don’t we relax and have some fun making art?

[bctt tweet=”Enough of playing it safe in your art. Let’s have an art adventure together instead. #doitfortheprocess ” username=”amymaricle”]

[bctt tweet=”We need to expand our idea of what a good art process is, instead of focusing so much on good art. #artjournaleveryday” username=”amymaricle”]

 

Creatively Yours,

Amy

 

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about how to use these fluid acrylic paints, you can click here to learn more.

 

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