How has this month been for you and how are you doing? I hope you are doing well and have had some time for yourself and your creative practice. But if you've been busy or are needing to catch up, that's OK! The prompts will be here when you are ready! 

 

When I'm unable to work in my sketchbook, I still try to keep the prompts in mind and work through what I'd like to do with them. Then once I can sit down and work, I'm ready to go and have ideas lined up! This is what happened to me recently and I finally got to put everything on paper! Sharing them below along with some more inspiration from our community.

“The November prompt is the Japanese concept Wabi-Sabi. You can look it up but for me I like the way wabi-sabi art can represent an awareness or celebrating the beauty in things that are imperfect or impermanent. This made me think of all the recent wildfires in California. wildfires are serious, dangerous but after seasons pass we are almost always guaranteed renewal and beauty to spring from it.” - KAREN

I FINALLY caught up on the prompts from the past few months! For “secret” I randomly picked one of the mood boards I had made. This one I picked had a lot of black and a black out poem which is what I decided to try. I love that if you take a closer look at a page from a book you can find and create other stories hidden in the sentences and words.

The page is from Edge of the Jungle by William Beebe—it just happened to have all these beautiful words about nature on it! 

open
my mind
miracle of sunrise
every morning
illumination
lights
the moon
a bird
cosmic happenings
double rainbow
slowly drawing in sunlight
gazing steadily

 

For “mask” I wanted to try using masking tape in a new way! I normally use it only to make borders but wanted to try cutting it and layering with watercolor to make a geometric pattern but I didn’t think it through all the way and got stuck then tried it 2 ways 😅

Method 1: Put tape down, add a layer of watercolor, let dry, repeat 3x. Unfortunately I didn’t press the tape down well enough on some parts so the lines aren’t crisp and there’s a little bit of bleeding :( user error. Also since I didn’t know what I was going to do, I feel like I put too much tape down as the first layer. However the result was what I was picturing in my mind!

Method 2: Put tape down, add a layer of watercolor, let it dry, peel off the tape, then repeat 3x. I felt like this turned out better because I made sure that tape was al stuck down. And I realized I could re-use it so I could repeat the shapes and make it more consistent. I do like how the different colors overlap but the first layer sort of disappears.

This is the fun part of creating—experimenting and seeing how things turn out! I want to try it again with less white on method 1 and layering a lot more with method 2. Here's a short process video.

For “slow” I decided to brush letter something and take my time doing it. We normally write so quickly and with lettering it's about taking it slow! I also love this line from Greta Ray's version of Vienna.

“Wabi sabi” made me think about how fragmented and divided our country feels sometimes. At the same time, I think about how when I was traveling across the US I was shown so much kindness by complete strangers with different backgrounds and beliefs. When I needed help, our differences didn't matter, we connected over our humanity, compassion, and empathy. That has to count for something right? I'm not sure what the answers are or what's going to happen, but it gives me hope. This piece was created by tearing up a map of the US then putting the pieces together and mending them with gold foil in the spirit of wabi sabi. 

Next Friday is our very last prompt day of the year! I can't believe it! I'm looking forward to sharing one more theme with you in 2024. Talk to you soon!