Monday Mutterings: The Artist's Date Book

I’ve had this book sitting on my desk for a long time. I bought it when I was still not moving around so much and unable to sit long enough to be in my studio. I thought that maybe it would help me to find ways to be creative while I was still pretty immobilized. But most of the exercises required more activeness than I was capable.

I picked it up today and thumbed through it again and thought maybe it was time to try again. I love the premise. I love the “Artist’s Way” and have worked through it at least once completely and did bits and pieces several other times when I needed to kick-start myself, renew inspiration, or fight the ever present inner critic. I don’t always do the morning pages now, but will go back to the routine when I am stuck or needing to work out something.

But I always had a challenge with the artist’s dates portion. Not because I don’t like to go places alone, but because I couldn’t come up with many ideas on my own, especially ones that didn’t cost much or that I didn’t do anyway on a regular basis…like browsing a book store, internet looking for inspiration, flipping through art book with paintings of the masters, all those kinds of things are always a part of the fabric of my life.

So when I found this book, I thought that it would help. I can tell you right now that some of the suggestions will be challenging to me, some will just not be something I want to do. For those I will use the idea as a spring board to tailor it to me.

So today I will start. The suggestion is to go to a park. Being Labor Day and very hot and my back not allowing me to walk much still I have decided to wait until dark, go outside and sit on my patio and just be…and to photograph the moon. If I can with my camera. I love the moon.

I will post pictures and the little journaling part over on my Art Everyday Blog.