I LOVE the idea of 'do art daily'. It's a goal of mine. But, so is being in the Word, and exercising. Let's face it, it's an accomplishment if I get one of those things done daily. And I mean consistently every day. And then I try to make jewelry daily and work on my blog, and list items on Etsy. The list goes on and on. It's probably more of a weekly success for me. A few days in a row of making jewelry. A few days in a row of listing items on Etsy. A few days in a row of exercising. But, I'll keep at it, I'll keep trying.
For now, my 'do art daily' has turned into 'do art monthly', and I'm happy with that. This monthly challenge that we as the Handmaidens put out to promote creativity, is at least working on me!
This month the challenge is titled auto correct. You immediately think of all the hilarity in text conversations because of auto correct. In fact, if you Google auto correct images you could be entertained for hours. I wasn't sure where my auto correct challenge was going to take me. I assumed text messages would be involved because that's just the obvious. But then, I was putting old books away and came across the title Gregg Shorthand. Copyright by John R Gregg in 1893, 1901, 1916 and 1929 by The Gregg Publishing Company. It says it's the Anniversary Edition. What a find!
So the minute I saw shorthand, I related it to auto correct. You can see the correlation can't you? If the shorthand symbol is written incorrectly, the words won't be represented correctly. Does anyone even remember shorthand? I do, because my sister Mary, was a pro at shorthand. I was amazed at the speed in which she could write shorthand. I think she was the best student in our entire high school in shorthand. I never even attempted the class.
The next piece of the puzzle in my version of this month's challenge was an invitation to an artist's cafe. My friend Diana organized an artist's cafe at our church. She is an incredibly talented artist and is good at sharing that joy with others. She set up lots of round tables and some easels and provided lots of art supplies. Many people brought their own supplies too. I tend to shy away from 'doing art' in a group setting. But, I wanted to see Diana and I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit. I knew I wanted to use watercolors. I've never been very good at watercolors so I want to figure them out!
On my way to the artist's cafe I heard something on the radio that caught my attention. The guy was talking about all the substitutes in our lives. Things that are substituted for foods that are not actually that food. Krab with a K. You know, a bunch of chopped up white fish that is used as a substitute for crab meat. It's a cheap substitute. It's not real crab. Then the voice on the radio said, "one thing there is no substitute for, The Lord." And that was it! That is the one constant in my life that will never change. There will never be a substitute. He will never fail me even when I fail Him.
So at the artist's cafe, I played with watercolors, I played with doodling and I even figured out how to write 'there is no substitute' in shorthand!
I'm not loving the overall composition of the finished piece. But, with the help of technology I can zoom in on different sections. I LOVE the different sections! Each little section seems to have a favorite look for me. This is why I want to 'do art daily' or monthly as it were. I need the practice.
There is no substitute.
This is the only photo I took in process as it's really the only one that shows a little secret! I cut these chevrons out of masking tape and carefully removed the tape after I was finished with the watercolor.
