Tag Archives: #100DayProject

Improvising

art, books, creativity, thinking out loud

I signed on for the #100DayProject again this year, paying a small subscription fee to be part of the Substack. I posted a couple notes there but I only have so much time and energy for writing and sharing so will focus on this blog.

The #100DayProject is sponsored each year by Lindsay Jean Thompson. The goal of the project is spend 100 days working on a creative project. I started with a plan for combining poetry and gel printing. I followed through on that plan for 10 days or so and was pleased with the results. But, I had subscribed to a monthly quilt box and the second box was on the way while the first box sat explored but unused on the shelf.

My time is flexible and mostly my own, but I didn’t have time for both printing and quilting so moved on to the latter. My #100DayProject turned to quilting for a couple weeks. My subscription comes from Mrs. Quilty and is meant for beginners. Each box includes a quilt block in a different pattern and then several utilitarian projects that demonstrate different skills. Fabric in matching designs, often from the same designer, is included; each box also provides a couple quilting tools. You are building your toolkit and fabric stash as you learn. The video tutorials are detailed and easy to follow. I am very pleased. This is an uncompensated review.

As I have shared before, I am part of Ali Manning’s Handmade Book Club. She highlights a different book style each month, and my goal this year was to make each one during the month it was featured, thus ending the year with 12 handmade books. I have completed January and February but March’s coptic stitch binding was more challenging as it included fabric covers and multiple signatures sewn in one at a time. So, I moved on to bookbinding for my #100DayProject. I made a few small, single signature books with gel printed covers and two Valen-zines from gel prints. They got their own folder as well.

All this to say that I have moved the focus of my project to a bit wider lens of having fun and doing something creative in one of my areas of interest every day. Easter is fast approaching and I need to start making cards.

I am dropping photos of all the various prints and quilts and books in a Flickr album if you want to see what I have been up to since February 23:

Stopping By Woods

Grass & Water

art, creativity, thinking out loud

I spent a lovely long weekend with friends, playing games, listening to live music and sharing stories. I didn’t make any art but I did save lots of videos and pattern ideas. My friends live on a lake and I was inspired by the blues and greens. I made three version yesterday: two watercolors (one watery, one dry) and one acrylic using a printing block and stencil I made out of foam. I like that one the best and am finding myself drawn to printing.

Making Art

art, thinking out loud

I have been experimenting with watercolor and colored pencils over the past few days, drawing designs and flowers. Today, I tried out an idea I had seen a couple different places on social media: stained glass painting. I used watercolor to fill in the sections created by the tape. Before I pulled it up, I designed to outline each section with a black marker.

Most of the examples just kept the white spaces white but I thought they were too wide so experimented with filling them in. The black spots were made with the eraser ends of whiteboard markers.

One of the ideas behind the #100DayProject is to choose one thing and experiment with it. This idea of taping and painting and embellishing appeals to me. There are lots of possibilities: thinner or even thicker tape, different designs in the margins, perhaps a background besides just the white paper. I could use stamps, make doodles or write quotes over the shapes. Or cut out the shades and reassemble them.

I am calling it, “I Don’t Hate This.”