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I must apologize -- I've been holding out on you.
After snapping and editing photos taken during my lunch break today (at 8:30am!), I count 12 or so pages I haven't yet shared with you. The reason is simple -- I stopped creating to jump up and share and just...had fun. I've been making more and more messes lately, trying to branch out and create more than flat, 2-D pieces.
I live on the floor, now.
The tables around me create the feeling of living in a hole, creating art in a secret, seculded place. I've always been the oposite of clastaphobic; at a friend's sleep over party in a hotel room, my spot was stretched out under the small wooden desk. Sheet forts dominated my bedroom. There's something magical about a small spot. You are protected. Contained. It is easy to forget about the outside world when in such a space, easy to pretend you're in a magical world. A princess in a tower. An explorer in the hull of a ship.
I like to see myself as a rogue artist living in a small apartment in an imaginary city, in a house full of other artistic types. We live on the outside edges of society and use what we can find. There's no thought given to the rules of society, of how things are supposed to be done.
These imaginings free me. Moving from my table to the floor removes all those rules my mother taught me, about not getting paint on the table, or getting things all over the place, or splotching and spraying.
"You'll ruin the table! The floor! Oh, my, look at how you've spilled on the paper! Use a paintbrush, not your hands! Kira, Kira, don't make a mess!" cries the Mom-voice in my head.
So I moved to the floor, on a small circle mat used for a chair on carpeting. Cheap. Replaceable. And easy to clean! Down there, in my magical spot, I can get watercolors all over the place, throw pages around. Sqirt paint from a tiny bottle on anything I want. Cut papers with abandon, and use them to soak up the pools of paint all over the place!
Stop thinking about where to put things, or if it'll be "ruined."
Yes, there is stress in the first steps, but it DOES help to remove yourself from these places we're used to treating a certain way.
If the weather allows, I recommend packing up your supplies and moving outside.
For some reason, it's easier for us to make messes in the grass, where no one will see, were it's already "messy" because of nature. You can throw paint across your backyard if you want to!
Here's the "finished" background, or, rather, the point I stopped at. In the next few days, it'll be covered with doodles, drawings, words, and photos. In letting go, I've created something I've always wanted to, something that makes me smile -- that I want to hang and preserve and continue on. And it all came from
removing myself from an established pattern of thinking.
I found this plain black messenger bag at a thrift shop and spiced it up with some fabric and my favorite phrase of all time:
be free
Take it where you will. Just remember to do it, in every moment of the day, with all your endevors. Free yourself from thought patterns, society's rules and restrictions, from the boundaries you put on yourself. Just free yourself.
{ I'll be posting the pages on the Journal Girl ML daily as part of my new initive of creating everyday. Check it out if you haven't already. My mini "this is how I did this page" fun starts tomorrow! }