Play makes Progress – Art 101 complete and still going :)

Day 101 of the Art 101 challenge came and went earlier in September while I was on vacation with my family, which I approached as a little vision quest. My commitment with Art 101 was similar to most participants, yet slightly different in that I chose to phrase it as creatively “playing” everyday. I knew that if I committed to a finished piece of art each day, that I would get too caught up in the numbers. I must admit that I still got a bit too focused on the output and numbers, but I would remind myself what I actually wanted to focus on and adjust accordingly.  This was my first day’s creation:

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from this experience was that “Play makes Progress”!  I am going to replace the idea of “practice makes perfect” in my mind/heart with this idea instead. Thanks to a fellow art 101 participant and new friend, Iris from Iris Impressions, and her recent blog post about talent, practice, and play, this little nugget of wisdom made itself more clear to me. This realization feels quite liberating!

This week, I’ve finally taken out the mini gelli printing plate a friend sent me (thanks, Renee!!) to play with.  I was so excited to finally try this technique and tool, but when it arrived, I put it aside due to other projects and probably some initial hesitation to conquer something new and the learning curve that goes with that.  Silly!  I love to learn.  Why, then, have such a thought?  Perhaps, because I didn’t want to go through the ugly phase that sometimes occurs when trying new techniques, especially when I’ve seen such awesome creations from others using this technique.  Phewy! (I can hear my mom now because that is a word she used, not me. 😉 )  Let’s play. 🙂

First day using gelli printing plate:

Second day – outside enjoying the autumn air:

Thanks to my kids for playing with me and reminding me how to be at child at heart and experiment!  Thankfully, we were able to keep the cat paws out of the paint this time. 🙂

Loved finger painting as a child and still do!

Reminder to self:

Huge thanks to Stephanie Cant, another artist and new friend, who started the whole art 101 project/challenge, largely to overcome the issue of perfectionism!  We need not focus on “perfecting” and can actually progress in amazing ways by playing!

Here is an example of the progress from playing over the past 101 days (There was only a week between the first and second face in the images below.  Both of these have something special to me, even if one is more immature):

I am so grateful to have been a part of the Art 101 challenge from day 1 (on June 1st), to have made some amazing new friends, to have played and grown so much as an artist. I definitely intend to keep going and make creativity and play a priority each day. I finished the last several days of the original 101 days with a little vision quest to see the beauty in this wonderful world while on vacation with my family. I am in the process of going through the thousands of photographs I took to put together a slide show, which I will share here on the blog and on the Loving Road facebook page once it is complete! 🙂

Here is a photograph from one of the sacred places we visited and were blessed to see:

One of my sons recently asked me if I knew what humans were made for. We had a lovely discussion about it and more again later with my husband and other friends. We all came up with some great ideas/answers/suggestions, such as “to create, to experience, to live, to dance, to learn, to be, to love” and I think my favorite might just be “to play!”