It takes courage to raise your hand and ask a question.  No matter if you are asking a teacher, a public speaker, or yourself, it takes courage to ask.  What question was I asking today?  Can I make something without color?  Could I go black and white and love it as much as I love creating with color?

Imagine me waving good-bye to the comfort zone of rainbow colors because I really wanted to grab some pinks and blues and greens!  I started by using black acrylic paint with a hand carved stamp on 5×8 index cards.

Usually, I am all about lots and lots, layer upon layer, but not this time.  I stenciled just one word from my Wall of Words stencil.  One of the reasons I designed this stencil with so many words was so that there were many ways it could be used.

As I ran the cards through the Xyron Creative Station, I was very uncomfortable. Not with the Xyron…it worked like a charm.  What had me squirming was all the white space on these cards as I saw them side by side. The tube of lime green paint was screaming at me to be used, but I resisted!

So what kind of background would I have for these cards?  A scribble journaled background.  All I did was stick them right in the middle of the scribble journaling.  The attaching was quick and easy since the Xyron turned them into stickers…the writing not so quick!

Doing 5 of these took surprisingly longer to do than I anticipated.  Another thing out of my comfort zone…patience. OOPS!  It was definitely an OOPS that I had to write this much!

In every Oops there is an opportunity.  All this scribble journaling gave me lots of opportunities to honor the courage that I see every day.  My friend struggling with health issues who greets each day with a smile.  My children who are in that awkward stage of transitioning from teenager to adult.

There has been so much courage that I have seen online too in the Facebook group and those taking Permission to Play (it’s a free workshop and open to all and you can join the fun anytime).

The courage to let yourself play on a weeknight. The courage to tell that critical voice in your head to hush.  The courage to do lesson 2, even though it felt so out of your comfort zone.  The courage to try.

Kristen Usin Smith shared her moment of courage with us in Permission to Play, and with her blessing I am sharing it here.

“I have to share a major art break through I’ve had due to making the Permission slip. Since I started making art again almost 2 years ago, I’ve always done it on the weekends. This evening for the first time I made art on a weeknight which may not seem major to most people but it is to me.

There was something about the act of signing the permission slip (maybe it’s the paralegal in me) that resonates with me and it felt like the floodgates opened. I realize that I could do art anytime I want and I don’t have to save it for the weekend. I had so much FUN I’ll definitely be doing it again soon!!  Thank you so much Carolyn Dube” 

Some questions are smaller…like can I do this without the rainbow.  Some questions are much much bigger…like can I find it in me to face the day.  No matter the question, big or small, it takes courage.

Ps. I really like how these black and white cards turned out but all that white space is just screaming for color to me.

I had a great time talking with Heidi Easley for her free online event, Creating From Your Soul.  If you’ve just listened to the interview (and you can watch it here), here’s a link to the free workshop I mentioned.  She asked each artist to share a tip or trick so I showed my way of starting an art journal page when I don’t have any idea what I am going to do.

The most important step for me is getting started.  It’s also the hardest for me.  This is the mess I made during the interview, a totally random mess which is one of my favorite ways to get started playing.   Painted with a brush, and my fingers, parts of a Gelli print®, and scribble writing.

The hot air balloons are from ItKupiLLi’s Museum Vol 1, available at Mischief Circus.  I love using digital images with Craft Attitude and a glue stick for quick image transfers.

Even with the balloons on it…I still didn’t connect fully with the colors.  My answer- a layer of gesso.

This was getting awfully close to white space so I had to add more color back in to the page.

There was a brown like color on the page so I had to take care of that…brown isn’t my happy color…but you probably knew that about me.   A bit of magenta on the balloons and now they make me happy.

The last step for today… a bit of stenciling with a pattern designed by Michelle Ward.  It isn’t finished but there is no rule that I have to finish it all at once or really on any time table.  When the muse sparks me, whenever that is, I’ll add more to it then.

Want some more play?  Come and join me for a free workshop call Permission to Play where I share 3 of the ways I reclaimed my sense of play.

Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!