The Artist’s Way: Take 2 1

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Last week I decided it was time to revisit The Artist’s Way.

The first time I was focused on the prompts and morning pages. I failed miserably at the artist dates so I thought this time, that would be my focus.

I definitely make them harder than they need to be so it’s all about keeping them simple and fun.

Last week I ventured to the art store for the first time since the pandemic started. I found a new color mixing book The New Color Mixing Companion by Josie Lewis.

When I sat down to think about my goals and what I need for the next 12 weeks, I wrote down fun ideas for artist dates so I wouldn’t have to come up with them on the fly. I asked my inner artist what she wanted to do and here are a few ideas we came up with:

• experiment from an art book
• read color theory books
• go for a walk to find something to sketch
• look at art on instagram
• do a creativity boosting yoga sequence
• watch a youtube video on art
• play in a stream (I used to do this as a kid and it popped in my head, so I thought I’d go with it.)

I’ve thought about randomly picking these things, but today I just sat down, closed my eyes and asked my inner artist what she wanted. I picked up my new color mixing book and flipped through the pages. I found one called Q*bert. I loved Q*bert as a kid so off we went to play.

I am terrible at drawing diamonds free hand. Or die-uh-muhnds as my uncle calls them.

I told myself they would better once I painted them, but spoiler alert, that didn’t happen. I’m okay with it though. It was just meant for fun and it was definitely that.

I think, next time I will go about it a different way. Starting with the vertical lines instead of going across. This would be a fun way to do my other color theory pages, instead of just boxes. I’ll need to make a template.

Another part of this week’s Artist Way lessons is to pick 5 other lives to lead. Mine are:

• astronaut
• lawyer
• international spy
• mini-animal farm owner
• travel blogger

Then you pick one and do it for the week. I’m going to pick travel blogger and try to make my tiny town of less than 70 people seem interesting. It would be kind of fun to go on a day trip, though. Aw, now I want to meet my friends between here and Chicago and spend the day with them.