The Inspiration Room

I have a room in my flat that I like to call The Inspiration Room.  It has housed craft supplies, magazines, empty paper towel rolls, etc. from the day I moved in.  At the beginning, I could craft on the floor. Before long, its use as storage [how uninspiring] pushed my workshop into the living room.
But in October, I resolved to change that.
I emptied the inspiration room, washed down the walls, cleaned the floor.

And then...it sat empty.
And I pondered what I could do to make it inspiring once again.

In December, I went to buy my Christmas tree [aka bamboo ladder] and wandered next door to the carpenter.  His shop seriously looked like Santa's workshop to me.  It was beautiful.

I took out a piece of twine that I had used to measure the width and height of my inspiration room, and I asked if he could make me a shelving unit and a wide sturdy tabletop board.  He could.  I picked it up a few days later, and enjoyed the special bonus of being introduced to the carpenter's 3 goats as well. Lucky me.

The makeshift desk moved immediately into the inspiration room, and it fit. Yippee!  I moved all the craft supplies etc. back in, and was oh-so-excited.  In the holiday rush, however, I hadn't had a chance to appropriately prepare the inspiration room for use.

So today, in honor of my New Years Resolution to be intentional in setting time aside for creativity, I listened to some music (Elton John and the Dixie Chicks, if you really wanted to know).  I put up some pictures.  I lit some candles.  This is what it looks like now:

And then I did a little bit of painting:

Behold!  The first finished "work of art" to come from the new and improved [and inspiring] inspiration room!  2013 is off to a brilliant beginning.

What has inspired you so far this year?

Work in Progress

I dabble in art.
And by "dabble in art",
I mean sometimes I just have to paint something.
Do something creative.
But I also love words.
Need words.
Crave words.
I also like to think that I can do the whole "mixed media" thing.
Emphasis on "like to think".
So most of my "work"
Ends up a mezcla of
words,
colors,
techniques.

This one, I was really excited about.
I've had a vision in my head
to do a piece that says "Grow"
For over a year now.
Its shape has changed,
but the desire has remained.
I found this great blog called Street Team
Where I learned about a technique called Gesso
(and Googled how to make my own - I improvised),
Another website called "Mixed Media Art",
And a really creative picture of a tree via Google Images.
I hadn't wanted to use a tree.
How generic.
How cliche.
Growth = Tree.  Always.
But I found this one when I was looking for an image for a worksheet,
And I loved this one.
Oh! And I pinned this cool image transfer tutorial on Pinterest.
An image transfer that didn't require any special paints
Or materials.  Supposedly.
I was pumped.

So I set up shop.
On this canvas, I was going to be incorporating
about 5 different techniques:

1.  Painting. Like artistically painting (if only imitating) a tree.
     (According to Picasso, "Bad artists copy.  Good artists steal."  I'm not sure which one I am...)
2.  Modge-podge.
3.  Gesso.
4.  Credit card painting.
5.  Image transfer.

Note to self: when trying out multiple techniques, some of them new, don't do it directly on the canvas. Test it first.

As I went along, I realized that I did things in the wrong order.  I should have gesso'd first, then credit carded, then image-transfered, then painted, then modge-podged.  And because of the gesso (essentially made of glue, baby powder, and water), my image transfers didn't come off of the canvas.

This is what I ended up with:

"Work in Progress" May 12/13, 2012

The white splotches?  Those are my image transfers.  Each one says "grow" or "become" in one of the languages that I have studies - Kannada, Spanish, English, French, Italian.  The white was supposed to rub off with water or nail polish remover, leaving the black lettering, but I had no such luck.  I like to think it would have looked really cool if it had worked...and the canvas and supplies have been sitting around my living room for about a month in hopes that I would be able to find a way to salvage the situation...to make it actually look good.

But I have decided that I am going to keep it like this.  After a month, nothing has changed. It's still the same, and it isn't perfect.  But when I look at it, I smile.  Because it is a work in progress.  And so am I.