Looking ahead: A year of Experimentation

I usually take the time between Christmas and New Years to think about my goals.  Usually, this involves writing up what I accomplished and then thinking ahead.  This year, I've ended up doing them in the reverse order mostly because I went into my studio in my head during my massage on Monday.   And I've decided 2020 is going to be a year of experimentation.

My big accomplishment in 2019 was making significant progress in healing both the eye problem and the Chronic Fatigue.  But, both problems are still there and will take time to fully heal.  So, I'm going to play in my studio and see how the healing goes before setting any art goals.

What kind of experiments am I going to do?  I'm going to focus on color.  And different ways to simplify my process.

So first is more marbling.  I love the swirls of color with marbling and I've started working with shaving cream as the layer to hold the color.  This is simpler and  faster than traditional marbling but doesn't easily do the tight geometric patterns that traditional marbling is known for.  I want to explore what patterns I can make best with this approach.

I like the swirly patterning and the intense colors so I'll start with that and explore variations.

Second, I'll be learning GIMP and trying to do digital collage.  This approach is better with the time limits I have due to the CFS.  My ancient CS3 version of Photoshop is not supported on Windows 10 so I took the forced move to W10 as an opportunity to both get a touchscreen laptop for digital art purposes and to move to GIMP.  I'll be using The Gimp Bible to learn the UI and the differences from Photoshop then work on expanding my skills in using these tools for artmaking.

Third, the lovely Inktense pencils/bars from Derwent.  I've used them before to embellish pieces but now I'm going straight for the coloring on fabric.  I can do this sitting down so I get more time to work for the same energy expended.  I'll be looking to combine it with my silkscreens as I tend toward images with lots of lines rather than blocks of color.  I think that should work well with the pencils.

Jeff got me the big box of art bars for Christmas and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

And my fourth area of experimentation will be things I can do while watching tv.  Jeff likes to relax after dinner by watching a movie or a tv show and I'm not as much of a video fan as he is but this is a great time for some small handwork.  Right now, I'm trying out hand stitching and I'm also investigating knitting with wire. 

I'll blog about all of these regularly over the next year and hope my healing progresses while I play and have art fun.  Wishing you a healthy, happy, creative year too!