Creative Challenges

Detail of my new moodboard

In January, Instagram and Facebook seem to be awash with creative challenges; a week of this or a month of that. To be honest, I find it difficult to stick with any of them for their entirety. I like to ease myself into the New Year slowly and gently and I don’t have the energy in January to keep up with a creative challenge. The challenge itself is not always a problem, but remembering to take photos of my work and post it onto social media every day does feel like a struggle.

So this year I am setting my own kind of challenge for myself, and it doesn’t involve posting endlessly onto social media! I may post a few updates on my progress onto Instagram if I feel like it but I am not going to beat myself up if it doesn’t happen.

The masterclass on the Art Tribe hub this month is a creative kickstart and I am taking some ideas from it to form my challenge for this month. I have spent some time mind-mapping my thoughts about my ‘wanderings’ project to identify the specific areas I am interested in exploring and, from this, I have put together a new moodboard to further clarify my focus for the work. I enjoy putting together moodboards, it is a gentle and calming task that I can take at my own pace. Now I am setting myself the challenge to dig deep into the specific areas of,

·         colour changes in the landscape over time,

·         immersion in the landscape – specifically feelings of freedom and wildness, and

·         mixed media drawing explorations – focusing on skies, plants/trees and paths.

It is possible that my focus will narrow down even more after diving deep into these ideas and carrying out further research. I am still enjoying reading around the subject of walking in nature and it has produced some enlightening discoveries for me. I have only just started reading ‘Wind Swept – Why Women Walk’ by Annabel Abbs, and hopefully it will prove equally as thought-provoking.

So, for the next six weeks or so, I will be diving deep into exploring my ‘wanderings’ project. I plan to get out and draw at various locations locally, as well as experimenting with paint, print and stitch back at home. At this point, I am not thinking about outcomes or finished pieces of work, I am going to play with ideas and different media and see what happens. I will take my time to follow the joy and see where it leads. No pressure to produce amazing art or share it with the world, just time for myself to explore the landscape and my materials.

One challenge I may take part in this year is the 100 day project. It is due to start late February so I will start to think about possible challenges I could set myself. I have dabbled with doing it in the past but have never found quite the right project to undertake. Something easy enough to do every day but also interesting enough that I will keep it going for 100 days. Hopefully, something will arise from my explorations in January!