Thursday, February 14, 2013

New Year Resolutions

After purposely not making any new year's resolutions, apart from the one not to make any resolutions, I have made a few tentative resolutions recently.  So there you go, I have broken my only resolution already.  ( I just reread this paragraph and I have used the word resolution 4!!!! times - not counting the heading either.)

Maybe it is because it is the new Year of the Snake that I am even thinking of starting something like this.
Anyway, I have all these ideas rushing around in my head - very exciting but also a bit daunting as I know I will not follow up on most of them.
Still ... I might follow up on some. Better too many ideas than none at all. I hope.

So ...
One of the ladies in my new playday group (if I can call it that) has a book that is also designed to be worked through to develop your creative and artistic skills (Finding Your Own Visual Language by Jane Dunnewold).  One of them appealed to me. It was to make a stamp every day for 30 days (maybe I could do the 40 days of Lent?? I did start on Ash Wednesday).  I probably liked this idea because I thought I could incorporate some of my recent interests all in one hit:
So far I have drawn some doodle/zentangle designs and cut out some small stamps (only 2, I have only done 2 days).

I thought I would try to two different mediums I have and see how they go - when I get around to printing them.

I will try to do one stamp a day and at least one doodle.
Yes, I know there are three, I got carried away the first day.

However, I am finding that the doodling is appealing to me and I have done several small ones as I was sitting and having a cup of tea. 
Doodling while having a cup of tea.

It will be interesting to see if I last more than a week - I never seem to get past exercise two in these books and, yes, it is exercise two.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

Wow, that's 'doodling'? I think they look like art pieces in their own right! ;)

Mary said...

Thanks Michelle, I must admit that my doodling has gained more focus and variety since doing the black pen drawing class. These ones are quite small, only about 7cm square(ish).

Glennis said...

Hi Mary
Your doodlings are certainly very effective. I bought that book last year and have done some of the exercises, but didn't last long. Maybe I should try to find the book and discipline myself to do one a day.

Mary said...

Hi Glennis, it is ok so far, 5 days in! I even did some on the train but they were a bit wobbly, the train just wouldn't stay in the stations long enough.
I have done the cutting for the lino cuts but haven't done any printing yet, it doesn't seem worth setting it all up for such small - and possibly boring - prints. I'll wait till I get a bit of a collection, then try them out.