A is for

It has been almost a year since I last tended this little blog. As you may or may not know I had an accident in December 2012 and I broke my arm. Nothing too traumatic there really, except it's now February 2014 and my arm has only just started to heal (thanks to surgery and a lot of metalwork and pins). I also had a few personal difficulties to deal with and so 2013 became a series of badly written chapters in my life book.

There is good news though - I am still here and I've made the decision to write the next few chapters myself. So I have taken charge of the pen (albeit with one hand!) and set myself some goals. The first one is to blog every day for the remainder of this month (tall order for someone who couldn't blog consistently with two hands), with each post containing a piece of my artwork. I have chosen to use tags mainly because I can complete one single handedly. However I also have a good supply of tag art created prior to my accident so I have something to fall back should I need it. Always have a backup plan.

There are 26 days left until the end of the month so can you guess where this is going?  Today is day one and I shall start with the letter A, which is for Art. Quite an obvious one you may think but each word I have chosen to define my alphabet has a dual meaning as you will find out if you continue this journey with me.

Over the years I've had many people say to me 'I'm not arty' or 'I wish I was good at art' and lots of other comments in a similar vein.  Well there is one thing I have come to realise during the last year.  It is not that we cannot do art, it is that our mind and heart isn’t OPEN to being arty or creative. And this closed mindset can be caused by anything from illness, to grief, to stress and worry and even as far as being told at school that you were no good at drawing/painting/colouring etc. There's a great one for closing your mind completely.

So here is my tag to celebrate art

This is a new creation and uses Chocolate Baroque Punky Flowers A4 stamp set, Dylusions Spray inks in Fresh Lime and Vibrant Turquoise plus the Cell Theory 6" Crafter's Workshop Template. All the stamping and stencilling was done using acrylic paint, not an ink pad in sight.

This tag illustrates the point I made earlier. The previous week I had got out inks, stamps, pencils and other crafty stash with the intention of having a good play and after a bit of spraying and a dab at a stencil nothing else happened. Either my head or my heart wasn't there - the closed sign was up. This weekend I realised why it had locked, and then the flood gates opened - I came up with this idea for a start. Not sure if that was going from the sublime to the ridiculous but boy has it generated a load of enthusiasm, creativity and art.

So if you find your mojo has left you, or find that you aren't being as creative as you would like, take a look around you - find out what it is that's closing you in, then look for the key to open it up. It may be hidden, but it will be there.

See you tomorrow with B