I'm still going at it. And there's a good reason I'm behind - a new job has gotten me a bit more busy. I'm very excited about it; it's a great opportunity. But I can't forget the post card challenge - even if it's just one that I've set myself. I want to keep going so I can keep the creativity flowing. Not every card is fabulous, but the point is to keep creating. And, as I sent happy back to school post cards to every niece/nephew but one, I can't forget the last nephew! The blue card is wishing him "MORE fun in this new school year," though I don't know if he sees it as an opportunity for fun, exactly. But I'm a school teacher, so I'm sort of a big nerd where school is concerned. The blue paper on the right side is handpainted. My background hand painted papers kind of come down to scraps at the end, so it becomes difficult to remember how they started out, but I think this one was part of the series of papers I had fun making when I was reading Traci Bautista's Collage Unleashed book. I did have a lot of fun making those papers. The pink card is a thank you to a dear friend of mine, with scrapbook paper background, and scraps of handmade paper (some from fusion dyed paper towels). So the post card challenge continues. The goal of this, as I said is to keep me creating even when the rest of life intervenes, so that I get in the artistic habit. Also, by the time this challenge is finished, I hope to have some new inspiration for other projects. The fact that this is a good idea was confirmed for me when I began reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. She talks at one point about the importance of writing practice, by which she means writing every day, even if some of it, or a lot of it, the writer looks at later and thinks it's garbage. The importance is getting the writing flowing. I've begun doing this with writing, too. This kind of activity is not "practice" in the sense that it's not the real thing, it doesn't matter. In the sense of this work, I think practice means literally "doing the craft" and, well, I like it because it doesn't mean I have to commit to great writing or great art or I'm a failure. I just means I have to commit to doing writing and doing art. So . . . think about challenging yourself to just DO ART. And give yourself permission for it to not be fabulous.
