Hello again, and happy March!

The days are flying by really quickly aren't they? 

I've got a lot to share with you today, so let's just jump right in shall we?

Day 7/100

I've been following a woman called Lisbeth Degn on YouTube. I quite like her, but a: her videos are the type that you actually have to watch - you can't just have her cheerfully nattering away in the background; and b: her videos are quite long.

Consequently, I have to have quite a bit of undivided time set aside to spend with her, and as a result of that, I tend to watch her videos once per month, or even once every couple of months.

Day 5/100

This time, I had an MRI scheduled for 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, so I booked a personal day off work, and when I got home around 7, I just got back in bed and decided to watch her until I fell asleep. 

I ended up watching about 6 hours of her videos, in which she talked about two challenges. One, she has joined, and the other, she is hosting herself.

Day 6/100

I decided to join both, but since her challenge started in January, and the other one started last week, I have/had a lot of catching up to do. This post is about #the100dayproject. 

As you can probably put together, the 100 day project is one in which you make a piece of art every day for 100 days.

Day 10/100

I have a TON of painted papers - long time readers may remember that I wipe up/use up my paint waste with good quality paper towels, which I then dry, iron (make sure to iron in a well ventilated room - I'm pretty sure the fumes that off gas in that process aren't good for you), and then put to use in my art.

However, I've been doing this for 20 years now, and I have more of this painted paper than I can conceivably use.

I decided that this project would be an excellent way to use up some of this paper, so decided my broad area of applied art would be "collage", and since I've been wanting to improve my watercolour skills, I decided to make my media watercolour paints, watercolour crayons, and watercolour pastels.

The first one I was just trying to get my hand in, mucking about - throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, as they say.

Day 1/100

This one is about half the size of the others (which are 8x10 300 gsm watercolour paper), and the first thing I realized; was that I didn't like the size. Although making small pieces means it takes less time, 4x8 just felt too piddly. 

And I also realized that trying to do a figurative water colour every day (which I did years ago and was my introduction to watercolour); PLUS add a collage element, was going to take WAY too much time. 

So, I immediately switched to a larger size, and to abstract. That seemed to suit me better, although (possibly) it wasn't much of a time saver, as each piece takes me at least 2 hours - some of them 3!

That said, once I switched to abstract, I immediately started having a lot more fun. 

I am enjoying the freedom of abstract art, although for me anyway, it's even more difficult than figurative work.

Finding balance is always prominent in my mind as I'm working, but also assigning meaning to what I'm doing is difficult, too.

What I mean by that, is not that I'm trying to have the viewer find meaning in it, but that I don't want to just haphazardly slap stuff on it, and call it good. 

Day 4/100

I haven't studied abstract art, so I don't know what the rules are, but I assume there are some, and knowing what they are would be helpful. Lol

At its most basic, do we use the law of thirds? The golden ratio? I have a dim idea that abstract art is about knowing and being absolutely sure of all the rules in traditional art, so you can "throw them out" in order to make non representational work. Colour, line, texture, pattern and composition - as in all forms of applied art are important, I'm assuming. lol

Well, I certainly can't say I'm an expert at traditional work, so maybe I shouldn't be trying abstract work, but after pounding out 10 of these in 28 hours, over 4 days I can say the following:

1. I am exhausted. Lol
2. My right shoulder is extraordinarily sore
3. When I'm tired, my ideas are fairly mundane 
4. Some of these are more successful than others, regardless of whether I was tired or not
5. So far, days 3-8 feel like "Kit", (3 and 4 less so, but on their way); while 1 and 2 don't feel like me at all, and 9 feels  so little like "me", it may as well have been channeled through me by someone else. Which totally sucks, because I absolutely loved the paper that strip on the left was made from, and was saving it for years for "something special".