Today: Get Messy Thursdays | Magic, Week 1
Get Messy Thursdays, on a Friday. A blame my tardiness on the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and other senior citizen-ish things that have had me preoccupied this week.
The new season of the Get Messy Art Journaling program just started, and the theme this time around is magic. I keep coming back to creepy magicians and crystal balls and unicorns and Harry Potter (confession: I couldn’t get into the books… but watched all the movies while eating pizza post-marathon training long runs), despite wanting to focus on the magic of every day life. Like when your daughter somehow knows that it’s a Tuesday or counts to ten aloud when she thinks no one is paying attention. Or those beautiful sunsets we’ve been experiencing nearly every night (unfortunately, they happen before 5 o’clock). Or, you know… Christmas everything.
And yes, I did decorate our condo on Wednesday despite Thanksgiving still being a week away. I figured if I did all the laundry, hung our stockings from the mantel and folded every last swaddling blanket, this baby might get the hint that we’re ready for him to arrive.
Meanwhile, back to the unicorns.
Get Messy Thursdays | Magic, Week 1
In the spirit of playing around, I made two pages with a similar process (if you can even call it that). After sketching with pen, I added plenty of water and watercolor to the center of the drawing. Once that dried, I went in to color the remaining exposed drawing. The result is sort of an intentional mistake.
The quote from Ben Okri reads,
Our time here is magic! It’s the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It’s the only space.
Side note: Unicorns (and presumably, horses) are not an easy subject for me to sketch. They have lots of muscles. And I am clueless about body parts. So there’s that.
I loved Shel Silverstein as a kid. Still do. Almost as much as I love Winsor and Newton watercolor in Opera Rose. That color is divine.
And lastly, a meditative exercise involving cutting out a million letters from scraps of colored paper. I almost quit seven times, but I’m glad I didn’t. Then again, I probably should have been emptying the dish washer or something more… normal.
And a special project: Get Messy x UNHCR
I recently had the opportunity to collaborate on a project to benefit the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), to aid in the Syrian refugee crisis. A group of 14 members from Get Messy created a collection of original work, and all proceeds from the sale of this magazine will help provide such necessities as food, water, healthcare and shelter for those in need. You can find a flip-through of the magazine here.
To learn more about our collaboration, or to purchase a copy of our magazine, please visit this link. Many thanks, in advance, for your support.
Also On Tap for Today:
- If you’re looking to get into art journaling or a regular creative practice, I highly recommend Alisa Burke’s online classes, which are all currently on sale. She has a new art journal class starting Monday.
- Totally treated myself to Adele – 25… and then realized our only CD player is in my car…
- Elf4Health is back! via The Lean Green Bean
Which Hogwarts house would the Sorting Hat send you to?
