My 40 Day Challenge

 A couple of months ago I hatched the idea to do a 40 Day Challenge, on my own, inside an 8" square book I created from 2 sheets of a heavyweight drawing paper.

THE CHALLENGE: Every day for 40 days make marks on one page using black ink, crayon, graphite, thread, paper.  I began with a great deal of enthusiasm but withing a week I realized that my erratic schedule didn't give me time to do the work every single day... so I flexed and agreed with myself that doing a page for 5 of the 7 weekdays was enough.  I stuck to it and made 40 pages.

CONCLUSION: I won't limit myself this way again. Instead of being a motivation to visit the page I sometimes dreaded doing the work. It became a chore.

ART SHOULD BE FUN. FULFILLING. PLAY. MEDITATION. 

Nevertheless, I'm glad I did it. I have a lovely book chock full of markmaking ideas that I will carry forward in my paintings, drawings, and collage. For that I'm grateful.

The process I like best is what I call Extended Photographs.  I printed out one of my own photographs in grayscale, in about half the size of the book page, and glued it securely. Using ink or graphite I drew beyond the edge of the photo, creating an imaginary landscape which didn't appear in the photo.  In this first one I used a Q-tip dipped in ink as well as a dip pen.