Getting back to all the art

Around the same time I signed up for the Hugo House 30/30 Challenge - I also finally decided to try my friend Connie's Art Journal workshop. To call her my friend is a bit of a stretch.  She's my friend Carol's friend from Cleveland who moved to the dessert to paint, create art and do all things creative.  I had hung out with her a couple of times and I thought she was courageous and amazing for deciding to do her art.  Her project/passion Dirty Footprints Studio showed up on Facebook and I decided to follow it.  About twice a year she would launch an art journal workbook series that you could purchase, download and follow.  I don't want to say I was intimidated - it was more that I didn't have the time - or didn't make the time for art.  I am not a great visual artist - and this isn't self deprecation.  I am sincerely just not that talented.  I like to sketch and doodle and paint but I don't have the skills to create things of depth.  I probably took two final years of art in high school before putting down my paintbrush, found objects, pencils and charcoals.  I tired again in college with an beginner's painting class that I eventually dropped.  They were just so much more talented than me and just understood the fundamentals better.  Their pieces weren't "flat" but rich and lively. I eventually turned to photography where I found a niche for sure.  Film.  Photography. Writing.  Theatre.  Those were my tools.  Definitely not painting and drawing.

This fall Connie had a free series to try out her art journal workshop.  And I decided, at the same time that I was going to do the 30/30 writing challenge that I follow and try out her workshop as well.  I bought many of the materials she suggested and set off doing the first few "classes".  It was easy and fun. (I set a very low bar for myself and the goal was to just paint.)  It reminded me of sewing.  It was creating something immediately.  It was tactile. It meant creating immediately and quietly. And I'm enjoying it.  

I'm not creating in my art journal every night.  Tonight was the first night I've picked up a brush in a week but I was too tired tonight to write and thought I would just dabble paint for a bit.  And though, like writing, I have a long ways to go with my art journaling, it's great to be exploring all of my creative self.