This Messy May challenge gave further confirmation that I am much more inspired by technique prompts than word prompts. And I got to use some of my precious dried flowers and Japanese paper in the process.
Category: artworks
Awaken #4 sign
The last quarter of the "scattered rings" alcohol ink piece gets enhanced with some asemic writing and a graffiti-inspired tag.
Messy May “flow”
This Messy May prompt to achieve a state of flow was asking a bit much, but I still enjoyed making this Klee-inspired block painting.
Awaken #3 trails
The third of my doodled alcohol ink quarters. After some trial and error, I ended up foiling these particle trails over the cloudy background.
Messy May “kindness”
I wasn't particularly inspired by this Messy May prompt, but I did like the simple gelli plate technique the host used. I used that and my favourite butterflies to create this page.
Awaken #2 ring
The second of my alcohol ink quarters. In this piece I found a ring and highlighted it with more gold and black doodles.
Messy May “home”
There are some bits of this Messy May page that I like, but the main lesson has to be "don't try to make positive art about things that you're not currently feeling positive about".
Messy May “habit”
This Messy May prompt was an easy one to follow. I already have the habit of rescuing (too many) things that could be useful from the rubbish. And, on this page, I made a point of using some of them for mark-making.
Awaken #1 circles
I went back to a piece of alcohol ink experimentation and rather than let it linger in a pile somewhere, I turned it into four mini works with the addition of some doodling. This is the first of those.
Messy May “imperfection”
"Embrace imperfection" they said, so I got out my little gelli plate, paints, some leaves, and a piece of grip mat and made an imperfect but interesting page for this Messy May prompt.
Messy May “connection”
Another Messy May prompt and, while the finished page isn't one of my favourites, it did give me an excuse to both shop for art supplies and trawl through old photos, which was nice.
Messy May “spark”
A little bit of paint and a handful of bits and pieces from the leftovers box that caught my eye as I was rifling through it were all I needed to complete the "spark" prompt for Messy May.
Messy May “mess”
I don't do journalling and I don't usually use words in my art, so creating found poetry from my own writing wasn't easy. The collage and ink splats make me happy though.
Art Journal Joy
I enjoy doing art classes; it's always interesting to see what you can learn from other people's processes. This time it's using collage and mark-making to spark ideas.
Messy May “cultivation”
Just like working in series, only smaller. This Messy May miniature composition exercise is a fun way to do some quick experimentation.
Crafty Rat 