Today: Get Messy Thursdays | Adventure, Week 5
This week I got got down to (messy) business a bit earlier than usual. Most weeks, I spread out my art journaling over the better part of the week and wrap things up just in time for my Get Messy Thursdays post to go up. With the holiday weekend upon us, however, I gave myself a time limit (1.5 hours on Tuesday) and let the creative vibes and liquid acrylics flow.
This is where the mess happens. Believe it or not, all that crap tucks away neatly into a little handled container I found on clearance at Target. It’s like the Transformers of art storage. Except less cool.
Materials used: [left side] Sakura watercolor paints and a white gel pen (forever obsessed); [right side] Sakura watercolor paints, water brush, Sharpie pen
I made the right hand page on Friday afternoon, shortly after the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. I cried happily as I listened to President Obama’s statement on the radio on my way home from working out (and man… later the same day, I would cry not so happily, listening to the President sing Amazing Grace in Charleston, South Carolina) and as soon as Grace went down for her nap, I broke out my watercolors and pens and started doodling. What a powerful, moving day. Love is love.
“God wants us to love. And not a twisted , crabbed, narrow tolerance, which often comes in the guise of condemnations, instructions and admonitions that try to masquerade as love, but actual love… Love first. Everything else later. In fact, everything else is meaningless without love.” –Fr. James Martin, S.J.
I added the left hand page on Tuesday. The quote is from a statement Fr. Jim Martin, S.J. made about the Catholic response to gay marriage. For me, being Catholic is as much a part of my identity as my (mostly — sometimes I think I am more liberal than I really am) liberal social views– they go hand in hand. And they’re rooted in a desire to see both God and good in all things, in all people. So when I read Fr. Martin’s statement, I was like, Yessssssssss.
Materials used: Extra-sharp, extra-unsafe scissors; black gesso; magazine clippings(the letters are from an article about seaweed farming in Ireland… okay); Faber Castel gelatos; waterbrush; palette knife.
So it’s been a month since I left my job, and though they’ve been few and far between, I’m still fielding emails and calls from the office. The other day it was one about a grant from 2007. I wracked my brain, but could not (and still can’t) remember the last name of the development officer I worked with on that project. Part of me was like, “Let it go, that was… how ever many years ago 2007 was.” But another part of me was like, “OHMYWORD! You are suffering memory loss! Your brain is disintegrating! You are not playing enough Suduko! You spend most of your day attempting to converse with a 17-month-old child and a six-year-old French bulldog!”
One of this week’s Get Messy prompts was to use hand-cut letters from a magazine, photo, etc. This seemed like a good exercise for my potentially aging brain. I free cut them (no drawing letters ahead of time) and let me just say… not easy. Once I got a few letters down, I tried to switch to my left hand, and managed to almost cut my other hand with the scissors… so I put a stop to that (safety first, brain health second).
I filled in the gelato circles with a few adventurous bucket list items. Is it weird that I really want to visit Mount Rushmore?
Materials used: Magazine clipping; Scotch masking tape with a ruler pattern (love this); Sakura watercolors; Micron pen
As sort of a foil to making plans and keeping a bucket list, I made this quick page using a photo of a man praying and a teaching from Buddha about dwelling in the present. I could stand to work on being more mindful. Like… a lot.
Materials used: Papernerd cutouts; Golden high flow acrylic paint; palette knife; white Faber Castell oil paint pen; blue Micron pen
This last page was really fun to make. I used cutouts from Nina’s printable (she shared a little challenge on the Get Messy instagram account) and threw together an abstract background in response to one of this week’s art prompts. I love how beautifully liquid acrylics blend. I almost never use red (I once had a flaming red rental car and was all, Everyone is staring at me!), but really like how it turned out here.
Oh, and… red, white, blue… Happy Birthday, America.
Also On Tap for Today:
- For more from my fellow Get Messy gals, you can find their links here
- Cape bound!
- 8 things every person should do before 8 AM via Medium
What colors (if any) do you avoid? My wardrobe is black-on-black-on-black if that tells you anything.
