100 Days Project 2017 - Creative Practice

Last year I took part in the 100 days creative practice challenge.  I found it immensely rewarding.  Frustrating and hard sometimes, but overall I found my art going places I hadn't foreseen and finding ideas I hadn't thought of and possibilities I hadn't discovered.  (You can find my project here.)

So I'm doing it again this year.  It's running earlier, from May till August, which suits me better.  And my daughter is really keen to take part, so I have an accountability partner already!

I learnt a few things last year:

• Keep it fairly small, broad possibilities are sometimes just as paralysing as narrow ones.
• Think about a standard format in case you want to present your work as a whole in a 100 days show.
• Have something new and shiny to work with to motivate you! (Last year mine was a brand new sketch book.)

And I've been thinking a lot about what I want to explore and how.

Last year was 100 days of faces.  I had never felt very comfortable drawing faces or including them in my work.  I'm much more comfortable with them now, but I still don't really include them in my work, so my first idea was to explore adding faces into my quilts.

But that's awfully broad.

So then I started thinking about how I work, what techniques I already use and what techniques I'd like to explore or develop.  100 days of printing was quite appealing.  But it's not very transportable and really does mean that I have to be quite prepared for each day's work.  My life doesn't always run like that...

I've ended up with 100 days of scissors.  A few things lead me to this.  I had been thinking about how I work with a lot of silhouettes in my work and I use scissors constantly.  Then when Matisse and his large paper cut-outs was mentioned on the AQ education seminar that I just went to (more on that later), ideas started to fall into place.  Matisse's 'hand' was very evident in his work, he was sketching with card, using the cut-outs to play with layout and test colour and form.  I do the same with my fabric cut outs, but I'm a lot more 'staid' in my cutting out.  I draw first and cut on the line.  So what will happen if I try and develop my 'hand' by free-hand cutting?  What sort of shapes and forms will appear?  Will you be able to see my voice and style?

So I've been researching Matisse and his gouaches decoupes and I've remembered that I've followed Raymond Saa on Instagram for a while (have I subconsciously been thinking about this longer than I know?) and I found Claire Brewster as inspiration too.  I'm going to keep thinking and researching, but when it gets close to May 22, start day, I'm going to put the books away, stop looking at other's work, and see where my scissors will take me.

My new 100 days project link is here (I think it's working).  I'm charlottewaves (my daughter is oliviawaves, she wanted matching user names and I'm indulging her while she's young enough to still want to be like me).

My shiny new things to add motivation?  A black paged sketchbook, a stack of coloured card and some brand new, very sharp, dedicated to paper, scissors.

Will you be doing the 100 days challenge this year?  And if you are, what's your project going to be?

Edited to add:  Here's the link if you want to sign up http://100daysproject.co.nz click the register button in the top right corner.