Forgive Lead to the Choice of my Word for 2011

This word was not on top of my list; Forgive. But after making the spread with Heart, I guess I wanted to go further in this direction. Forgive. It is a pretty big word and holds a lot of meaning.

When I thought about it, what crossed my mind first was the question if I would be able to forgive myself for all the mistakes that I made in the past.
Especially since I ended up in a situation in my life where I really did not want to be. And I understood that I had been ignoring a lot of signs, moments and opportunities. Someone told me that I was very judgmental towards myself.

She was right. And so the subtitle for this spread came up: don't beat yourself up. Forgive yourself. You have tried with all the right intentions.

When I was working with these kind words, I felt that the word for 2011 would be Soul. Taking care of my inner feelings, taking care of my spirit, listening to my heart, allowing time to heal old wounds. Being kind to myself and forgiving myself. Soul would be the word that held all these kind of actions, feelings and intentions.

So Soul is my One Little Word for 2011.

I also felt that making spreads about these uplifting words felt good to me. So I did not stop here, I would use these inspiring words to make my art journal a kind of guide book for 2011.
No personal commandments, but soft and kind guides to remind me what I needed to do for myself in these changing times.

The spreads I made became more simpler than I ever worked. Just an inspiring image, a word, a small sentence, some journaling from the heart and a little border.

Heart

The word Reposition was just not working for me. I wanted to explore the word Heart. I am not a cool thinking person when it comes to decision making, but I did use my reason a lot in making choices. Always asking what is the best choice. Second or third is the question: what would you want? And when faced with such a question, I have a hard time making a choice. Figuring out what I really want is not that easy for me.

Would I be able to make decisions based on feelings, on what feels good in my heart? Is 2011 the year for me to try this?

Reposition

This word surfaced in my thoughts when I was making the spread with all the words I was considering. Reposition: to put in a new position; shift.
The word was nice. But just that: nice. Not something you would like to use as a guide for the next 12 months. I just wanted to start the next spread: Heart. That said a lot about Reposition, didn't it?

One Soothing Word: Heal

When I finished the spread about Soul, I was in a much kinder and softer mood. The next word I took from my list was the word "Heal".
The year 2011 could be a time to heal the wounds of 2010. There was something comforting and soft about this word that I liked.
I decided that I would work out some other words in this book before making my choice.

How about "Spirit and Soul"?

Back in December, when I was looking for that One Little Word for 2011, I decided to make a spread about the words that spoke to me the most.
This was the second spread I made: Spirit and Soul - be kind. The previous spread about Choice did not feel good. I thought it would be a good word for the new year, but somehow it felt like a 'command' instead of a soft guiding word. This one was so much softer: Soul.

Still doubting, I started working on the next spread and the next word.

Finding One Little Word, How About 'Choice'?

As you can read in previous posts, I was in search of one word to use in 2011 as a guide. Instead of making resolutions, or goals for the new year, I prefer to choose one word and have that in my daily life to remind me.
The first word I came up with was 'Choice'.

Somebody said to me that I should choose and commit to the choice. I am a very intuitive person and I like to go with the flow, wherever it takes me. That is a good thing, but I am open way too much for new things to happen and change directions halfway. And in the end it leads to confusion or sometimes even nowhere...
In my art journal I made this spread about 'Choice' to ponder about it. I did not decide anything yet (!) and wanted to make more spreads about other words that inspired me.

I'll show you one in the next post.

The Search for that One Little Word

To clear the mind, you have to let it flow freely. So the next step for me was to write the words down that came up in my mind.
On this spread, I wrote them, printed them, stamped them.

Every word that I came up with, seemed to be a good word. Something that I could use in this new year, in this new life of mine.
Oh boy, there are way too many words. And I keep finding new ones. I needed a way to make the selection easier!
I wanted to 'work' with a word. Make at least one simple spread and see what was happening while I worked at the spread.
Time to experiment, play and feel. I always like to find a reason to mess around with paint and glue, images and letters.

Another New Word

Back in December, I was aware that the new year was approaching soon. I had to find another new word for 2011 that would guide me throughout 2011.

Since the word for 2010 had turned out to be so powerful, I decided that I should take great care in finding a new word that would guide me through 2011.
I took my art journal and started this spread, which turned out to be a big question mark.  Decision making is definitly not my greatest asset. Working out my feelings on paper in paint, markers and pencils helps at least organise my thoughts and make them real.

This spread is simply about the search for that one Little Word.

One Little Word for One Year

Instead of making resolutions for a the new year of 2010, I started with just one little word. Just one word that would be with me during the year and that would be my intention, my guide, my direction..


The word I had chosen for 2010 was CHANGE. This was something I desperately needed. My life was completely stuck and I noticed that with the New Year 2010, I stood at the same place in life as in 2009, which was almost the same as 2008. Can't remember how 2007 was, but it must have been pretty much the same as well.
So CHANGE seemed to be the right word for me in 2010.

And it was.

That little word changed my life in a way that I could never have expected. It did not happen in an easy way, absolutely not. It happened the tough way.
My marriage of over more than a quarter of a century - yeah, that long - dissolved in a divorce. Hard, but it was the only solution to end years of a very unhappy life. There were just no repairs possible any other way, I tried. I tried for too long..
Along with that, my weight dropped 3 dress sizes as well - which was a very welcome change! And for the very first time in my life, I started to live on my own.

These were the most apparent changes. But underneath the surface, more subtle changes happened, just because I allowed them to happen.

It has not been an easy year. I could honestly say that this was the hardest year of my life. But my life turned around when I opened myself up for change.

The power of one little word.

And now with 2011, it is about time that I find another word for the year to think about, meditate upon and dream about.I started thinking about it some weeks ago. There were several words that came to me and which appealed to me in different ways.

Since I felt that the influence of CHANGE was pretty strong in 2011, I feel that I need to be careful in my selection of the word for 2011. And the best way for me to ponder about things and work through them, is expressing them in an art journal. So I took out an empty sketchbook and started this first spread, a looking back at 2010.

One little word.

Just a Pretty Picture!

Just a pretty picture of a tulip, way past it's date, but still looking good.

A Beautiful Mess

Creativity needs to flow -and if it doesn't, you will have to get it moving.
The book: Mess, The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes from Kari Smith was for me the urge to get something going. And trying to loose my sense of perfectionism. The title really says it all!

On this page an old German vintage picture of a  beach was meant to be altered. Just a tiny bit. The assignment was to erase something. Boy, did I erase something! I erased almost everything. The picture was full of people in the see, little houses on the beach, big buildings in the sea. Not a beach that I would like to be. So I started to erase. And kept erasing. The only things left are the beach, sea, sky, dunes and those two figures in the foreground. A little bit of gesso and watercolor crayons did the magic.

One of my favorite assignments was on this page. Take a lot of little paper strips, add glue to the page, drop the paper strips in the wet glue from a distance.
Simple and messy. Just what I needed.

First I did one side of the spread with cut paper strips. Then I used the little circles from my puncher for the other side of the spread.
This simple act brings back childhood feelings of pleasure, fun and wonder. And the more mess you create, the better you will feel. Well, that is the way it works for me... :-)

This book is a relief to work in. You can do a scribble for 10 seconds, or take some more time for other assignments. Don't want to play with paints? Choose another spread and just find an assignment that you like. No need to start at page 1 and advance to the next page!

Want to get rid of a creativity block too? You can find the book here:
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781846144479/Mess
This is my favorite online bookstore because I don't have to worry about the shipping costs and/or order costs. Simple because you only pay for the books that you order - they have worldwide free shipping and no order costs.
Do you also like to play this way?

Be Happy

Some good advice, captured on video.

To view the complete video, click this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&hl=en&v=GisHH2NXrYY&gl=US

Mess...

Sometimes, you just need to let go of everything nice and beautiful and create a mess before you are able to create at all!
That was my idea when I lost my mojo and was unable to express any creativity. I came across the book "Mess" by Keri Smith and ordered it from the Bookdepository.
The idea behind the book is that you are not only allowed, but encourage d to make a mess of the book itself.

I started going to the pages and found this assignment: Fill in this 5 inch square by using all of the colours you have on hand.
That was an easy one! I just had taken out a tin with loads of pencils and started doodling in colour! The workspace became a beautiful mess as well. :-)

More pages from The Little Red Book (part 6)

Working in a little book definitely has its advantages! Paint seems to dry quicker and the page is filled up quite easily with images, collage papers and stamps. But what I do like most of working in this little book is the freedom of expressing myself.

Normally I work in an altered book with a theme and want to express all kind of related thoughts and ideas about the theme in that one book. Sometimes that takes a bit of thinking and planning. In this Little Red Book there is no story line, no common theme. One page does not have to match the other page. I do not work in one style throughout the book. I just take each page as it comes and do whatever fits my mood. Don't you just love this kind of freedom? Well, I do!

A Little Red Book (part 5)

Finally Spring has arrived - temperatures are rising and nature is waking up. The weeds in the garden take advantage of my waking up way too slowly from my winter sleep, and they start thriving already. The birds eagerly wait every morning for me to feed them. They have important things to do, gathering materials for their new nests.

The doves are courting, making moves with their heads, trying to please their partner. Swans and geese are flying over in pairs, falling in love the way only they can do. Buds from plants are growing and starting to change to the brightest green,  ready to burst open. In short: life is starting up again.

Everything moves so quickly. Time seems so precious in spring and is moving forward quickly. It's hard to keep up and I feel the need to hasten my pace or I will fall behind. Luckily I have this art journal to express my thoughts and feelings - a way of capturing time and catch phrases before they are erased by the hectics of this beautiful month.