I stenciled all the wrong ways and loved it!

What’s always been the hardest part of creating for me? Starting.  Especially when there is a blank page involved.  I used to be stopped by thoughts such as, “Will it be good enough?” or “I don’t have a good plan” or “I don’t have the right supplies” or “It won’t be good enough anyway”.

I still have all those thoughts but they don’t stop me anymore.  Kurt Vonnegut was right when he said, “To practice art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”

For me, this  quote is all about giving myself permission to make something no matter if it is pretty or a hot mess.  Perfect isn’t important.  What is important is the  starting, the doing.  So that’s what I do now anytime I hear those thoughts.

In the video, you’ll see how I take that quote to heart. This starts out as one hot mess where I am doing it all the “wrong” ways, and it brought me such joy.

Watch How to deal with the blank page by stenciling all the wrong ways on YouTube.

I am honored to be the featured artist this week at Colour Me Positive, a weekly journal challenge. Thank you Lisa! I love all the positivity and creativity happening there!

To get started,  I grabbed my Verbage stencil since verbs are all about doing. I stenciled all the “wrong” ways with the Dylusions paints- too much paint, going side to side instead of up and down, stenciling on top of wet paint.

I had a blast doing it!  Paint ran under the stencil. Colors smeared together. I can’t even read most of the words.  Who cares!

Then I turned it into a giant hot mess with random marks with oil pastels. I could have stopped any time but I didn’t want to – it was just too much fun scribbling away!

In that chaotic background, I saw a garden so I used a couple of masks.   The Bold Flower masks (that come with the stencil) and one of the butterfly masks that also come with my Butterfly Journeys stencil to create a garden. 

I even managed to temporarily clog the hard to clog fine liners. It wasn’t a problem at all because there is a little metal pin in the cap so that I can unclog it with that. Of course, I could also change how I was holding the fineliner…but that is a crazy thought!  If you’re new to fineliners I have a video about them here.

What started as a blank page taunting me became a total mess and then turned into a very colorful garden of play!  Next time you face that blank page, take Kurt Vonnegut’s advice and just start doing it!

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!

InLinkz.com