A quick reminder that if you'd like to join in on the snail mail swap, reply to this email with your mailing address! If you've already let me know, thank you--you should have received a response confirming your participation. Matches will be sent the same time as our first April prompt--I can't wait!

 

There were also a few more ideas for “message” that I came across recently and wanted to share with you:

Here's some more inspiration from our community as well as a few exercises to try when you're feeling a little blocked!

"For the first I pulled out watercolors. ( I've been gravitating towards them because I've been pretty busy and the easy brush cleanup has been attractive to me. Lol) I played with them for a bit and then stepped away to let the page dry (another bonus in a busy day - I managed to take care of a few things while my puddly paper dried). When I came back I had the idea to receive messages through automatic writing along some of the shapes in the paint. I haven't done automatic writing since college when I was very much interested in the whole concept. I was kind of pleased with the look of the page - the gel pen over the watercolor -- but to be honest I haven't looked at the messages yet (somehow it feels a little woo woo and embarrassing hahaha)." - Claudia I love this idea so much and want to give it a try!

“My second piece was inspired by a TikTok I watched shortly after I received your prompt. Long story short a guy in the US receives a random Facebook message from a scammer in another country. Instead of ignoring it, he engages and by the end of the story they have raised money together for the scammer's community and they publish and sell a book of photos taken by the scammer with a camera the US guy sent him.  It was very sweet and I took a screen shot of one of the final images with the intention of painting them with watercolor and some caran d'ache crayons. Well, a bunch of days later when I had some time to paint I didn't actually have my phone with me but I figured that I would do it from memory. Ha well I could tell fairly soon that I was not painting these Tiktokers and I realized when I was done that I had painted my brother and me!! Ha. Well what is the message? It's Love. It's always Love. ❤️❤️” - Claudia You can read the full story here.

I have a few ideas for this week's prompt and want to interpret the words above in 3 different ways. The first is by creating a collage--I've been wanting to collage a quote for quite awhile so I am excited to try to bring the vision in my mind to life! So far I've created each of the words. Today I'll be working on making the details and then I'll put everything all together in a stop motion style video (if I can figure out how to do that :)) 

I had a feeling the collage would take the longest so I've dedicated the first week to that. Next week I'd like to try 2 other methods: brush lettering and painting with gouache. Please stay tuned!  

I've added a few new PDFs to the library. Both are great warm up exercises or an activity to try when you're feeling stuck:

You can learn more and download the templates here.

 

As a companion to the above, I also wanted to share with P Marin's “Morning Circles” exercise (thank you Archna for sharing this with me!). Here's an example. Although she does this as a daily commitment exercise, I think it can be used on an as needed basis, during times when you're feeling stuck or uninspired. 

Enjoy your weekend and upcoming week. Take the time to connect with your creativity and sketchbook :)

Talk to you soon,

PS: I'm working on making some updates to the resource pages and adding PDFs--they should be ready and up by the next prompt!