Creative Mess

Some people say that a messy desk is the sign of a creative person.  Or maybe just a messy person.  Me?  I’m definitely messy.    🙂

Sign of creativity? Or just a mess?

My messy desk above is the result of participating in the Art Journal Tangents & Tactics Series over at Daisy Yellow.  Tammy is incredibly talented and generous and sponsors several challenges and workshops.  As her ICAD challenge ended she mentioned the start of this series and I knew I’d tag along.  The FREE series started August 1 and includes art journaling techniques, video tutorials and creative prompts (posted each Friday).  I’ve found the videos to be really helpful and encouraging.

Here are my first two prompts.

Tangent No. 1  ::  Starburst

Starburst

~ watercolor, black Nano-Liner, white Signo pen, black Pitt artist pen and white paint marker ~

I really enjoyed working on this page.  It was a challenge to be more random with my colors.  Adding the doodles and pen marks really made it come to life.

Tangent No. 2  ::  Cup Half Full

I see the glass as . . . .

 ~ gesso, acrylic paints, distress stamps, stamps, Signo white pen, Pitt black pen, printed title ~

I loved the background concept of gesso combined with acrylics and ‘smooshed’ around the page.  Another technique featured using found objects as stamps.  My stamps were lids to jars and plastic boxes.  Fun!  The prompt of half full/half empty made me think of positives and negatives and my journaling reflected that.

Tangent No. 3 is about making accordion books.  And let me just tell you . . . I am obsessed.  I’ve made three books so far and the big scrappy mess on my desk in the top photo.  These three little books are almost finished and will get a post of their own soon.

I couldn’t take the mess any longer so just after snapping the photo I had a major clean-up.  Then I started another project and . . . well . . . you can probably guess what my desk looks like again.

What are you creating today?

♥ Janet