Thursday, June 20, 2013

I'm playing with a full deck here... i hate puns, really....

But I want to talk a bit about what I am doing right now.  I know there are tons of "art decks" with things to write about or prompts etc. and I have tried several of them over time.  HOWEVER, I don't want to do a funky chicken dance while drawing on big paper with fat charcoal... or whatever else is in the list that the creator found worked for them or thought would make the deck more universal.....
I have my own version of "block" and I decided to try to find my own way to "unblock" without creating a new task that might or might not get finished or could become a block in itself. 

I lock myself and the dogs in my studio every morning and let them play or sleep or do whatever and I write my artist's pages and then I do other things and I try not to let myself out til noon.  I have done a good bit of work in the music journal and the bridge book and I am pondering another book that I am not ready to decide to do yet, but...

I just don't always have something that I want to DO while I am there and so I decided to create a chore deck.  I also decided right away that this was NOT going to be all drawn and painted and decorated it was going to be a piece of art supplies without any gilding whatsoever because I could certainly spend a lot of time making this and have it turn into another unfinished project.

I dug up a deck of cards .. 54 cards including two jokers and found that I could write on them with Sharpee permanent pens.  I sat down at the table and started looking around the studio.  Then I started writing.  One task per card.  Simple tasks..

* Go through the box of Polaroid Image Transfers and organize them
* Make a Gelliplate print or 5
* Check out the box of old Mediums to make sure they all are still usable
* Design and cut 1 print block
* Cut 5 eraser printing blocks
* Organize photography prints better for finding them
* Go through 1 box of yarn from under the bed
* Use Cotton Scrim in a print
* Collect all books about one artist and go through them

The list is heavy on organizing one specific area or type of tool or work or whatever.  I find that once I open something to organize it, a lot of ideas come flying out.   SO, this morning I shuffled the deck and picked the first one listed above.  I now have two image transfers from the box left out so I can work on them tomorrow.  If I don't do that, then I get to pull another card. 

The cards are absolutely not works of art, but I had a very easy time writing 54 things to do and I now have a list of all those little things I need/want to do.  I certainly could have dressed them up better and not just scribbled them down on a card but then I would not have 54 done and ready to see if this kicks me into doing more. 

So I found a pretty box to store them in.... and here they are...
 
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2 comments:

dorothypandorasbox said...

Sounds like a good idea to me. getting organised with very little stress.:-)
Well done.

Digitalgran said...

I'm going to try this Jordi!