EDiM 12 Draw a button

A long time ago I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I couldn’t get along with it at first. It was a bit new age spacey for me. But then I started doing some of the exercises and realised what a useful book it is. One of the things you have to do is to go on an “artist’s date”all alone to soak up new images for your art.  One of the first artist’s date I did was to go to “All Buttons Great and Small” which is an amazing buttons shop, maybe 20 min walk from where I live.  Have a look at the picture. It’s like a little Aladdin’s cave. I bought these buttons, some like strawberries, and some like pencils.

I had hoped that during Every Day in May, I would go minimalist, like the artist with the wonderful blog Woolgathering, Elizabeth Perry. I haven’t done it because I guess it is just not me. This is the closest I’ve got and I must say I’m happy with this one. It wasn’t even deliberate. I had all the buttons there. I drew two stars, looked at it, and thought “stick with the stars”. I have been concentrating on trying to use a wider range of materials during this EDiM, and I think that doesn’t really tie in so well with minimalist work. Especially when I usually fill the whole page. It’s not because of “wasting paper”.  You might see some of my old posts from 2009 about the fear of good paper. That is long gone. I make my own sketchbooks  and I have a big pile waiting to be used.

This sketchbook, I want to fill up quickly. It is nice watercolour paper (Canaletto), but it is a bit smaller than I prefer. A great size for Every Day in May, but if it was finished very soon after the end of May I’d be delighted to move on to the next one.

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