Finishing 365 for 2010 and Starting 2011

On December 31, 2010, I completed my 365 Milwaukee 2010 project, taking a photo a day for a year. You can see the slide show below or browse the set on Flickr (in reverse chronological order):

If you see less than 365 photos, that's because a few photos are only visible to friends and family. My family's like me - we don't like having our photos taken, much less posted on the internet. So you'll see very few self-portraits in this set! And I suspect a large percentage of the photos are still-life set ups taken after 9 p.m., when I realized I needed to take a photo before I went to bed. This project served more as a documentation of my creative life (after two previous failed attempts to do Crafting 365), so there are a lot of photos of art projects and supplies. OK, there are quite a few photos of food as well. And cats.

So what's next? In 2011, I've decided to fill this book that I made in 2010:

I'm not sure how the binding & wooden cover will hold up, but there's only one way to find out. Fortunately (and not due to any foresight on my part), I chose paper that was meant for printmaking, so it's fairly thick and sturdy and will hold up to paint & markers and who knows what else!

I don't expect to do something fabulous every day. My goal is to at least make some marking once a day, even if it's only laying down a wash of color, collaging an image, or doodling in a corner. So let the New Year begin!

A Picture A Day

While I haven't had much time for blogging, I'm still doing my 365 photo project, taking a photo a day (some days are better than others - there are a lot of photos taken at night with bad lighting)

I also submitted a photo for the New York Times "Moment in Time" event, where they asked people to take one photo at the same time around the world on May 2, 2010. They apparently only expected to get a few thousand but ended up with over 13,000 submissions (and counting). I photographed some Artist Trading Cards in progress on the dining room table.

You can see other photos on the NYT Lens blog and in this spontaneous unofficial Flickr group. Eventually the NYT plans to have a gallery up and running where you can see all the photos submitted! Just give them a bit more time.
UPDATE: You can see all the photos they received here. Alas, because I had trouble with their submission form on the day, mine was one of the ones lost in the e-mail submissions.

Easily Distracted By Shiny Things

The Milwaukee ATC group's February theme (by a landslide vote) is "Easily Distracted by Shiny Things," which is both a joke and VERY true. We laugh about it, but how many of us are compelled to collect sparkly things like magpies, even if we never use them in our art?

I've been photographing some of my art supplies for my 365 Milwaukee 2010 daily photo project and keep pulling out lovely twinkly bits and bobs that I've collected but can't yet bring myself to use because I just enjoy looking at them. I guess I don't want to get them dirty or use them for some art piece that I'll regret later! Who knows! My brother got me a bag of silver milagros when I visited him in Phoenix in 2007, and I've still only used one or two of them, but I love to take them out and fondle them.

So far my shiny ATCs have used gold embossing powder, as with these spring-themed cards using Ten Two Studios' Spring Beauties, Flower Cigarette Cards and Garden Words:


And I found three ATC blanks that I had made last year when I took Kimberly's Metal Manipulation workshop at Art For All, so I'm making a few embossed ATCs as well.

And now my shiny things are calling me....

Starting a 365 Project (AGAIN)

Back in 2006-2007 I made an ATC a day for 365 days, and that was a very satisfying exercise. But when I tried to follow it up with Crafting 365 on Flickr, I got bogged down not with trying to do a little bit of craft everyday, but with documenting it! I wasn't taking a photo of every little thing I did (5 minutes of sewing, etc), and while I tried writing down my daily accomplishment, I found this tedious (and tended to misplace my notebook). So after failing to follow through on Crafting 365 not once but twice, I let the whole thing lapse.

Flash forward to January 2010, when Rachel.::.K announced a Milwaukee 365 Flickr group. So I thought, what the heck, I can probably manage a photo a day. Some days will be crafty, some days may peek at everyday life. Some days may produce a blurry picture of a cat. We'll see how long I can keep this one up! Here is my 365 Milwaukee 2010 photoset on Flickr.

January 6, 2010 - Contrasting my ATC with the inspiration photo from Mark Simon's Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists