"Failing Well" with Fun-A-Day.

What could be so hard about fun? It's supposed to be easy, right? Sugar City, the all-ages art space in Buffalo, has challenged local creatives to "do something fun every day" for the month of February over the past few years. The result is a group show with everything from quilts to drawings, poems to purses. (This year's show is March 22nd; send them a message here if you'd like to join in).

My struggle every year is deciding WHAT to do for this challenge. I love too many media, too many subjects and am generally overwhelmed with choice. Last night, I sifted through my art supplies and paper and decided that I will start with the hardest ones: markers, ink sticks and other things I bought over the last year but got intimidated by. They sit on my shelf, silently mocking my fear. I will actually USE them this month, and I started with a test post last night to summarize:

And today, I kicked off my morning by celebrating one of my favorite things: good espresso. Following are images of the scene I drew, a look at my Derwent Inktense Blocks (essentially water-soluble pastels), how they appear on the paper before being wet, and post- water.

I am trying to sit with my perfectionist thoughts and let them pass. If I'm honest, I hate this drawing. And then there's a part of me that thinks it's pretty cool. I like the looseness of the Inktense Blocks but I'm completely new to it, so I need more practice to get comfortable.

That's what being an artist is, though- a practice. Fun-A-Day helps remind me to get out there and just CREATE and stop thinking so damn much about it. More soon!