January 2024

 Happy New Year!  If you're wondering what I've been up to this past month, here's my story!

First off, most years I wind down the end of the year through the beginning of the next with a creative respite - my creativity takes a hiatus, and I'm left with no energy or inspiration for awhile!  It's kind of like hibernating... the holiday rush is over, and January and February are typically slow season at the gallery.  So I give myself permission to rest and at some point I start to "dither and putter" around the studio.

Well, this year, I had another little thing to deal with - I fell the day after Christmas and hurt my back!  I won't go into the details - suffice it to say, I have been kind of in "healing" mode for the past few weeks... some days I don't feel like doing anything, others I venture into the studio and putter some.  

This year, I decided to play around a little with water colors, and started following some artists on various social media platforms.  Here's an exercise I did one day following some videos by bb henry art:

This was fun - I used some paints, torn paper, pencil and marking pens with no end purpose other than to relax and enjoy the process.

Then I did another little project using scraps of things to create a collage:

I have amassed a large amount of paper and fiber scraps over the years, and the drawer where I keep them is overflowing!  I could do a hundred more of these and never put a dent in the supplies I have!

I recently bought some more watercolors and paper, and decided to start playing with them to get used to how to load my brush and create shapes.  Here's one small panel I did yesterday - just the right size for a notecard:

This was inspired by the work of ana falceta, who I follow on Instagram.  She uses watercolor paints, marking pens, other paints and usually adds stitching to her pieces, which really inspired me to try this!  I plan to try more of these and see if I can up my game over time.  I have no real desire to paint realism, just color, shape and form, but I love the mark making that to me adds such visual interest!  

Yes, I will be back dyeing and making bowls before too long, but I love being able to add to my  repertoire of skills and interests!  Stay tuned for further developments, lol!