Am I messed out?

I haven't played in my Messy Journal for weeks. I'm afraid to say that I've somewhat abandoned my poor group of mess-creants to their own devices.

What happened? Did I just get messed out? Was there only so much chaos one girl could take?

My office is a perpetual mess as is my 'studio' aka dining table. As much as it pains me to attempt to work amid piles of paper, stationery, a camera, notebooks, bubble wrap (who knows what that's doing on my desk?), shells, bank statement and magazines - I just can't quite organise myself into any semblence of order.

Attempting to paint is even worse...

Would a bigger house help? A bigger desk, more shelves, cupboards and drawers? Or, would that just offer kindling to the blaze?

Sometimes I hate it. Often it brings the black dog of depression to sit alongside me whining and dribbling to be taken out for a walk and entertained. When it gets that bad though, I have to give in and tidy up at least a little...

My art is never neat either. It usually begins life as a quantity of splats and splotches with little thought for the final output. I just paint on top of what I've got. A bit like the rest of my day as I battle both creative thought and paper towers.

Despite the lack of space in which to work, today has been a profilic one on the art front. Here you see the result of being told to 'destroy a page in the book and put it back together again creatively'. I snipped, sewed and threaded (and performed the habitual paint slap).

I like it. It makes for some interesting angles. I may have to experiment further and start sewing more of my artworks as one can get away with being, dare I say it, 'messy' in one's sewing skills. It's called art darling! Couldn't get away with that when trying to put a button back on!

This final shot was me playing with layers in PhotoShop.

Now I shall shut the door on this chaos and retreat to my bed and no doubt tangled dreamscapes!

Knowing where to look

I woke to a blinding light that pulled me sleepy perplexion. What on earth could it be? Drawing back the curtains and gingerly twisting open the blinds I was astonished to be greeted by an azure blue sky with not even a wisp of cloud. Could it be? Surely not? Had it actually stopped raining?

Not willing to waste a moment of this rare sunshine, we headed out countryside-bound. Armed with camera and wellington boots, we sneaked off to Coton Manor, and her magical English country garden. It's very special at any time of year (owing to the fairies that live there); but for a couple of weeks in May, when the rain stops long enough, your eyes can intoxicate themselves with the spectacle that is the Bluebell Wood.

It's hard to stop taking photographs in such a beautiful landscape and I already have hundreds from previous visits, but this time I'd set myself an extra special challenge. You see, in this ocean of beauty I was looking for mess.

I look for mess much of the time these days. If I can't find it, I make it. I'm addicted to my Messy Book Group. It is utterly liberating to be making wild, free, abandoned art!

I thought that given the amount of rain (and the 'wellies required' warning on the website), I would get some great shots of gloopy mud. It actually wasn't that bad. So, I was forced to find my own mess and this is where I realised that nature creates some beautiful compositions where you least expect them.

I soon got over my disappointment that we'd missed the best of the wisteria, when I realised what a pretty pattern the petals had painted on the paving!

And was that really a heart in a sticky bird poop?

(As an aside, why does bird poop tend to be white when they mainly eat brown things?)



Nature creates happy accidents too

Intriguing compositions

and... just to prove I didn't just look for mess...

A little artistic adjustment to this one... (messed it up a bit!)

This is Rodney. He's 20 and says "Hello Rodney"

And it was in fact...

Drum roll... the mystery ingredients were actually fairly tame for me.

I pre-heated my oven to 200 degress centrigrade, then greased and lined a 12" cake tin. These had nothing to do with the mess I was about to make, but I'm on a diet and acting out making cake helps with the craving.

Next I spread some lovely and thick PVA glue over my page, trying to completely cover the large Question Mark sitting in the middle (that looks like gauze, but isn't). I sprinkled over a light mixture of salt and sugar. This makes interesting dents in the glue and looks like the surface of the moon.

This seemed a little mundane. It needed a certain something... I hit upon it at last. Bicarbonate of soda - it reacts with vinegar, I wonder what happens when it comes into contact with PVA? The answer was not much, so I sprayed a touch of water on which made a bit of fizz.

Once the whole concoction was nice and dry - having spent a cosy evening in the airing cupboard - I drizzled over a heady mix of alcohol inks which slipped over the glue and sank into the sandy texture. Lovely!

Can you imagine a whole painting completed in this method! My mouth is watering at just the thought. I see am abstract bunch of tropical flowers dripping with hummingbirds.

Well onto yesterday's competition. Nobody guessed quite exactly right (frankly, I'm not surprised!). So I went for 'nearest the bull'. Congratulations Giggles - you win a place on my course which starts on Monday! I'll be in touch by email.

(I ended up posting this on both my blogs - most of the comments are on the other one).

It's not often I go a week without blogging and I am sorely missing the opportunity to scribble and share. However, with just a few days to go until my eCourse starts and plenty of other work and commitments then something had to give.

I've come up with some great posts while in the car, but the witty gems just didn't want to come back to me once I was in front of a keyboard. I've also been hitting the gym!

One of my 'other commitments' has been the Messy Book Group where we continue to experiment and push the boundaries of what the uninitiated might call chaos, but we call art. This week has seen car tyres painted brightly and then driven over the book, a snake persuaded to make mud paintings and some mysteries involving unknown substances.

I'm in the unknown substance camp. What on earth do think I used to make these interesting textures and patterns?

Anyone that guesses correctly goes in the draw to win a free place on my creativity course which starts on Monday. There are five 'components' to guess! I'll pick tomorrow morning (UK time 9am-ish... it's Saturday.... I might sleep late...).

If you don't win, fear not. For just £42 (that's around US$67), you could join us on an 8 week playful journey to the island of Inspiration, on the trail of Technique with the excitement of Experimentation! We will be making art, writing magical prose and generally having a picnic of a time.

(Forgive the shameless plug... I'm just excited to be doing this at last and am a gregarious soul, so would love lots more people to join those already signed up!

Hmm.... What can they be?

Sharing for Paint Party Friday.

Don't be scared...

And keep scrolling... the painting gets (marginally) better I promise...

But... before I start... may I just say how THRILLED I am to be the featured artist on Paint Party Friday this week! Huge thanks to Kristin and Eva for pouring the champagne week after week (sometimes I struggle to get my Muse out of there....).

Where was I?

I'm learning so much from my mess!

Take the other evening. I was all set to create a beautiful whimsical girl. Soft flowing tresses, delicate English-Rose skin and a sweet smile. I dropped in the first layer of skin tone and then... from nowhere, came a little Imp intent on mischief.

The rascal put shocking pink paint in my hand and bade me colour her hair, then of all things begged me to splatter her now glowing locks with blue paint - in several shades - whatever next?

Well, it got worse as we sprayed with water, twisted and dripped, then when the deep pools of paint weren't keen on drying, we spoldged into them with rubber stamps with no care or thought. A few drops of alcohol ink and she was transformed. My beauty was now a zombie. Poor lass.

What could be done? Well, nothing until she'd dried out that was for sure... Then I very nervously (and carefully) brought her in for an examination. You know what... there were actually some bits I really liked...

I saw the beauty within and coaxed it back out of her...

(Zombie version was a photograph. This one was scanned and keeps the true colours)

OK, I admit that she still retains an element of the creepy supernatural. Nobody said bringing anyone back from a zombie-fied state would ever be easy - look how long it took Will Smith. The point of the exercise was to find wonder in the destruction; to find pattern and linkage; to see 'with my eyes closed'.

I made mental notes of how much I loved the mix of colour and florals on her cheek and will almost certainly be using the techniques again in future.

We don't just have to do this in art. The right side of the brain is set up for finding pattern and crafting what you might think unrelated ideas into original thinking. Have you tried painting to music? I don't mean just listening in the background, but really letting the music conduct your brush?

And what about playing with your words? Listen to a great piece of music and let the notes and movements dictate you the story. It's all there if you only listen hard enough and open your senses...

I'm getting all this from my Messy Book Group. I might not be growing cress again in my forthcoming artwork, but do expect to see more drips and free stamping!

I'm a crazy girl in love with pattern, texture and colour!

Pretty Flamingo

Lisa Wright

There's a method to the madness... I'm experimenting. This week I was inspired by the work of Lawrence Yang who I 'stumbled upon'...

His bio reads:

Lawrence Yang wrestles with informational abstractions by day and paints by night. Influenced by graffiti art and traditional Chinese painting, he employs ink, marker, and watercolor, as the permanence of this media adds a sense of immediacy to his work. Lawrence's paintings make use of color to communicate atmosphere and emotion, and they are concerned primarily with creating order out of chaos (and vice versa).

Lawrence Yang

Lawrence Yang

He's seeing dimension in drip and dribble, substance in splatter... and little birdies and teddy bears in ... well ... maybe we shouldn't go there...

I took my own interpretation of his technique and, because I was wearing my best clothes at the time and didn't want to ruin them, printed out some splatter work I had 'prepared earlier' (just like Delia Smith). It was just some pink dribbles really with a random blog of green. It immediately spoke to me. In fact, truth be told, it sang.... 'pretty flamingo'. It sang it a lot... until I got really annoyed...

Anyway, we ended up with three pretty flamingos and one green bug. I was quite pleased that Manfred Mann hadn't recorded any songs about green bugs.

If you're interested in exploring new techniques (and getting annoying songs stuck in your head), then this is just the kind of thing we'll be doing on my Inspirational eCourse (shameless plug!). It starts on May 14th.

I'm also getting immersed in my messy book group which is proving great fun with the mess tribe getting up to all sorts of mischief and goading each other on in our Facebook group. We're learning that sometimes art must become mess before it can become art again (but sometimes it's just mess). If you want to get crayon shavings in your carpet or charcoal up your nose, then come and join us any time! Just request an invite to the Facebook group. The more the messier!

I'm sharing this for Paint Party Friday too.

It's OK to be messy

Week 2 of the messy book group (never to late to join in!!) and I'm trying to remind myself that it's OK to be messy - in fact, that is indeed the point of the exercise! So, it being Friday night and all, I decided to get smashed.

Don't tell my son, but I 'borrowed' a couple of his crayons and hit them hard with a hammer until they pulverised all over this page. But that wasn't really messy enough (unless you count the bits that flew off and embedded themselves in the carpet). Next up I headed to the kitchen and my art iron...

(As an aside, I would not recommend using your normal iron to melt wax with. I made that mistake before so have now purchased a £5 iron from Tesco which I use exclusively for this purpose!)

While I was waiting for the appliance to heat I turned my back just long enough for the boyfriend to come wandering in to the kitchen and move my messy journal scattering bits of crayon across the kitchen floor. More accidental mess.... it's getting good...

I melted neat, I melted through paper, I melted over greaseproof sheet. I burnt my hand and got bits of wax stuck down my fingernails.

Then, I turned to the glue page - nice and sticky. This one took a while as I had to wait for the glue drips to dry before I rubbed them with alcohol ink.

Then, I couldn't quite resist getting all arty... I took some macro photos but darn it the flash went off...



Hold on... if this isn't an accidental discovery, then I don't know what is... They have a certain appeal don't you think - accidental art.

I think there's a creature in this one...

Finally...

A real close up. I like this - follows the rule of thirds compositionally. A piece of art made from mess. Good work. Next week I might use food.... Eeek!

The Messy Book Group

I'm so excited. My first online book group is about to start!!

So far there are 15 of us rolling up our sleeves and getting messy with Keri Smith's Manual of Accidents & Mistakes. I'd love it if you joined in - all the details on my Book Group Blog.

Week 1 is just really finding our feet and starting to loosen up. I'm only going to share one page with you this week but I think it truly epitomises what the book is about....

... namely having fun and, quite literally, thinking outside of the box.The instruction for this page was to use all the colours you have on hand. Well, I thought I'd take that literally! I just love the way the acrylics knit together.

I looked up Sol Lewitt. He's a new artist to me - one of those painting stripes kind of guys. The sort that begs the question "But is it art?" Of course it is!

I let him inspire me to seek pattern and colour in the messy hand print, to really drill down and simplify.

As a first exercise it was fun. I'm inspired to pursue the fingerprint lines some more... Watch this space...

Let's get messy

I'm copying this over from my new creative business blog. It's a bit of free fun and a wonderful challenge for you all! I would so love it if you joined in!


Three summers ago I joined a group that helped change my life. I  know that sounds a bit far fetched - and you'll be even more dubious when I tell you what the book was - but it's the truth. It awoke something inside me that had been lying dormant for a very long time.

The book was Wreck This Journal: To Create is to Destroy by Keri Smith and the group was run by coach Jamie of Jamie Ridler Studios. Over the summer of 2009 around 40 of us destroyed our journals in the most creative ways imaginable and underwent a transformation. Suddenly we realised that art did not have to be about carefully positioned paint or strategically structured design. Art could be the messy stain left over after you squashed your spaghetti between the pages of the book. Art was words, dirt, stickers, fluff. Creativity was burning, cutting, smearing. Supplies were everywhere - from the long forgotten impulse buys from the craft shop to flora and fauna or even your own hair picked up off the floor of the salon!

We mixed in some guts and a whole heap of fun and just let go. Our Muses were given free rein and they loved it! We shared our wrecking each week on Jamie's blog and inspired each other to be more revolutionary, daring and downright dastardly to our books. 

Our friends and families, at first bemused, began to join in too. By the end of our adventure we each held something really special. I for one, was truly inspired. I knew that from that day forward, my house would never again be tidy and nor would I ever be far from a tube of paint. Magic had happened!

• Does that sound good to you?
• Do you fancy quite literally letting rip?
• Want your creativity to be let loose to have a mash up with your Muse?

Well, let's do it! Join me for a couple of months of messy play with another of Keri's books Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes. Every week we can return to my blog and share our creative adventures, inspiring each other onto more daring devilment with every page.

Are you in?

Just subscribe to the list below, so I can email you the details you'll need. All you need to play is your imagination, somewhere to post your week's mess and plenty of wild, crazy abandon! Let's start sharing our first forays into letting loose on Friday 6th April.


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