Handing it to Michelle - GPP Street Team CRUSADE No. 27 ~ Shape Up!

So I have to HAND it to Michelle at the GPP Street Team.

As you may have noticed by the tone of my posts these days, the Queen is stuck in some pretty deep dark blahs (she is working on getting unstuck but the program is slow going !!!!). She hasn't had her usual zest for creative play ! In fact, a lot of the time, even looking at all the wonderful things going on in blogland made her feel overwhelmed and inadequate instead of the usual inspired and motivated !
(Enough of this talking about myself in the third person !!!!)

When I saw the new crusade posted a couple of weeks ago, I so wanted to get excited like I usually would. Usually I jump right in and I am one of the first ones to post my adventures ! But instead, I was just not feeling it.


Don't get me wrong ! Michelle, as always, had presented a fantastic idea for us to play with ! Choose a shape, preferably a new shape that you haven't explored too much before, and revisit some of the old challenges like creating stamps, stencils, playing with size, color, etc...and create a whole new set of tools and lots of play time for yourself ! How great does that sound ? Especially as a way to launch a new year of art making ?


But I was struggling...short attention span, lack of creative drive, feeling like I was a bad artist...you know, the usual bluesy whine !!!



Then this morning, the shape I wanted to explore just kind of came to me ! The snow was falling down really heavily so there was no where to go but the studio. I headed in there and got down to it - it was Kim Time !!!!

When I looked at the time again, 2 hours had passed. I had played for two hours - lost myself, played with materials, and color, and texture, and listened to old music and sang, and just enjoyed life. For two whole hours ! This was really something for me in my deep dark blah state, believe me ! This morning, thanks to Michelle and to my artist's soul, I had a vacation from the blahs !!!

So I have to HAND it to Michelle for encouraging us in our creative play ! She started the GPP Street Team crusades to encourage us to take the time to create, to be in the moment of art creation and then to share our experiences with other artists. What a gift she gives us each month ! Thank you, Rockin' Michelle !


So without further ado - check this out, Baby !

Shape Up - Hands On !!!!
Yup ! I chose HANDS as the shape I was going to run with this morning!

First thing I did was print out a whole bunch of different hands onto cardstock. I got the images from Printshop 21, from copy-right free images I have collected along the way etc...

Then I carved a couple of different HAND stamps - right hand, left hand, little hand...

Then I created a stencil with the same Hand shape which gave me a stencil and a mask :

I have done some pages in my art journal tracing my own hand or making a monoprint of my own hand. Why not a stencil and mask that can be used over and over without getting paint under the finger nails ?

My own hand cut out of an acetate using a stencil burner ! Cuts like butta !

The mask used on a background painted in my art journal :

Then just to get a little fancier, I cut out these stencils of a pointing hand with a flourish cuff - I used a graphic from Printshop as a design.

I tried out these stencils in my journal too.

The bigger hand on another background (My favorite sweet spot of the day !) :

As you can see, it was a productive and satisfying two hours in the shop today ! It made me remember the joy of creating, not just the have to. It made me feel like an artist again when my visions started to come together. And best of all, it beat the crap out of those bloody blahs and made the Queen mighty thankful for this Sunday morning !

Onwards, Crusaders ! Banish the blahs ! Create, create create !!!!