Okay, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought about what to do next for my 30 Days of Something. I go back and forth on doing a journal page every day. And I just don’t know. Not only is there the “doing” of it, whatever it is, there’s also the scanning or photographing it, and then blogging it. Sometimes the documenting takes up more time than the doing of it. I don’t want the 30 days to become a chore. The whole idea is to be creative on a daily basis, not to dread it or feel guilty about not getting it done.
Bianca, an online art friend, was inspired by my 30 Days of Carving, and decided to do a journal page a day for 30 days, starting tomorrow. She set up some guidelines for herself so that it wouldn’t get out of control–like she set a time limit of 30 minutes, and she made a special journal for the project, that is small. I thought those guidelines were great ideas. But, I’m not quite done with the journal I’m working in, and don’t want to jump ship on it before finishing. So I would want to continue working in the one I’m working in. Plus, there’s the question of what if I do a journal page that I don’t want to make public? Do I want to censor myself in that way, to only do things that I can post? So as you can see, there are lots of questions, and I keep leaning one direction or the other on the fence.
What might work for me is to set a time limit to work in my journal every day, and then post whatever I’ve gotten done in that time limit. Then if it ends up being a journal page that I don’t want to post, I’ll need to do something to start off the next journal page that I can post. That is sounding like a good idea. I’d like to start tomorrow. But by then, who knows what I’ll have decided! I guess you better check back to see. And in the meantime, let me know what you think. You might have some solutions I hadn’t thought of.
Your cemetery pictures are awesome! I like the way they're presented too, cool effects. I like the idea of timing yourself. Laura Thoma, a creativity coach calls it "creative snacks" but she says to set a timer for 10 minutes. Not enough time for me. But when the timer goes off, you're done. No more pressure. Unless you want to go on of course
I can't wait to see what you come up with!
I'm hoping you join me–even if it's off and on–I'll happily link to you whenever you've got something up. When I work on something that I don't want to share, I put a blur filter over it. That way people can't read what I've written. I'm like you, sometimes I write things that are really personal and I don't like to censor myself just to suit my online audience.
You have inspired me to do 30 day challenges as well. I too am starting tomorrow. I am doing a rule of 10. 10 months left, and so I will do 10 different things for the year. My overall theme for the rest of the year is Discipline. Which is what I am trying to establish in doing the 30 days.
Love the cemetery photos! Why don't you do photos for your challenge? You could pick a theme, location, letter of the day, time of day, there are a lot of possibilities and you do take a lot of photo already
Beautiful photographs! I, too, have found I spend more time scanning, adjusting, and posting than I do on the actual creating. You've given me some great ideas though! I'm thinking that the time limit thing is a good idea. Thanks for sharing. (Can't wait to see what you come up with).
Scanning journal pages takes a long time. When I want to get something up, quick & dirty, I just use my camera. Of course, I'm not a professional at this art journal business, so I'm guessing that I'm not as picky on how my work is displayed.
I've been scanning in old family pix, and I can only manage one a night, and that's on a good night!
PS I signed up for Art is … Petaluma. See you in September.
did you do that with an analog or an i-phone app?