The preamble
Well my new years project starts tomorrow. I am not one for resolutions but this year I bought myself a gift pre-Christmas... when I ordered my calendar(s) I spotted a glorious looking book which was an answer to a prayer... Art Lab for Mixed Media Artists... my brain went.... "Oh *grumble* your love of Mixed Media that's the reason you couldn't take art to GCSE level" and my heart went "I MUST have that book".
Some Background
I was once told that using felt tip pens and ink and colouring crayons was "not allowed" in the same picture and then I grew up and visited art galleries and discovered that the rules people tell you as kids are just so they can grade you and number you and count how clever everyone is against everyone else.
I fell in love in one of the rooms of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery about 8 years ago with this mixed media painting http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/2001Q3 and thought to myself that if it was okay for proper artists like Fiona Rae can create such beautiful "Mixed Media" that it must be okay after all!
At college I got two weeks of exciting art lectures- 4 hours in total, which I loved, we modeled clay, we drew, we printed, we sketched- pure bliss!
During my teaching I came up will lots of inventive and beautiful art projects which I enjoyed devising very much. Then when I spent time doing supply teaching I learned to love the words... "Oh this afternoon I thought you could do some art with them" this was an opportunity to raid the art cupboards and put on some music and enjoy teaching. I did sketches, collage, pastels, painting (volcanoes more than once for some bizzare reason!) and loved every minute of it and it got me thinking that I missed creating artwork for myself for the fun of it.
What's going on?
Although as it stands today I am not ashamed to say that I display some of my own artistic creations alongside fine art prints in my house but I feel that there is so much more I could explore... especially since I seem to fall in love with different types of pen, pencil, crayon, paper and paint on a rotating basis and I have a room full to use up.
So this year 1 book, 52 projects, 52 weeks... and possibly one guest collaborator on another continent... but more about that later... hopefully there will be at least a post week if not more by the end of this project some of them with pictures!
So click save on this bookmark and keep checking back for my progress.
Love
A.
