Saturday, May 3, 2014

#21 Days in May: Practising Gratitude

Bernice, of Newly Creative, has hosted some wonderful, FREE art journaling classes, including An Attitude of Gratitude (see my journal here). and Passport to Art (see many of the pages in my altered book here) which I took and loved. This May, she is hosting a new class titled "#21 Days in May: The Art of Practising Gratitude." I was on the fence about participating, but I decided to take the plunge. For my journal, I decided to create a series of tags and put them on a ring. This will make it easy to create without worry about keeping things in a certain order. Bernice will be posting prompts each weekday in May, which include a theme, a quote, a bible verse, some video inspiration, a link, journaling prompts, a technique suggestion and an action. Bernice encourages you to use any or all (or none) of each day's suggestion.
For day #1, the theme was "create." The quote from Matt Groenig read in part "Living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people." One of the featured techniques was water color salt background, and the journaling prompt asked about what impediments keep you from being creative. The action item was to start a gratitude list.  I used these prompts to create the following tag:
I used a variety of stamps that represent the various aspects of my creativity and added the clock because finding time to create is my biggest impediment to creating.  On the back, I put the Groenig quote and add the following journaling: "My creativity starts with my camera, my paint brush, my words but hopefully continues into who I am and how I affect the world around me." I started a gratitude list (visible in the top photo) and wrote "I am grateful for my art studio space." This is what the project looks like so far.
I really like how it looks, and I'm looking forward to practising gratitude and carving out some art time this month. The class has just started. There's plenty of time to join in. The Practising Gratitude blog, with all the instructions, and the first prompt is at this link
Anyone else planning to play along?

9 comments:

Bernice Hopper said...

Great post. Love your tag idea. Thanks for joining in

Karen said...

I love all the artful images you have on this tag! I'm starting a new photography class and a new card class this month, and then promising myself I will work on the unfinished ones after that!

Cath Wilson said...

LOVE your tags - great idea - and the list, which is a real list.... oops, I didn't actually do that! Great work x

alexa said...

I very much like your journalling :), as well as that quote. Your tag 'book' I going to be wonderful - I am looking forward to seeing all the great techniques you'll try and how the project will grow.

Sandie said...

Using tags is a great idea Rinda, I'd love to take part but have other commitments at the moment. I still have last years book to finish but I will enjoy seeing the wonderful pages you and Bernice make.

Mary B said...

sounds a great idea and I love your tag

Anonymous said...

It sounds like a great course and your tag looks great. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you come up with during the course.

Lynda said...

I love that you decided to use tags. Great idea and a great topic for the month.

Sarah Anderson said...

I was tempted to do tags but wanted to keep the project together - it never occurred to me to put them on a hoop, what a great idea!