Lyric Kinard’s Start Your Art Cards prompt a finish

I am at a crossroads of sorts. Writing my book was a lot of work.  My creative juices were thrown into the book, not my art. As a result, I’ve been in a bit of an artistic dry spell. I feel mentally exhausted between the book launch and the rigors of teaching at Houston. I recognize all these are Very Good ProbIems! But it has created a feeling of “meh” in the studio. I needed to get myself revved up.

Coincidentally, Lyric Kinard recently released her Start Your Art cards so I had to try them. Start Your Art is a deck of cards that helps you jumpstart your art with just 15 minutes of play. Each card is a prompt to make “bad” art. I know this to be true: you can’t make good art without making some bad art along the way. That bad art may be just what you need to help you see your way to making great art.

Perfect, just what I needed!

I chose 3 cards and had some fun! First up, deconstruct:

I chose an iron as my recognizable object and found a vector drawing to work with. I tore it randomly into pieces and created a new object with each remnant. That was fun! I really didn’t think I would be able to roll with that prompt, but I did, and the whole point was to just let go anyway.

Next up, distort reality:

I traced the shape of a corkscrew and successively altered it with each rendition. Again, it’s just for fun. I do like the final version best.

And my favorite–artist as thief:
This piece of production art hangs above our wet bar. I love it and its color story. The exercise was to replicate the colors in the proportions of the piece, but in a whole new way.

Okay, so I didn’t have enough colored pencils to replicate the colors, but it was fun and I actually like the result except that green blob in the middle.

Although it’s not like I went immediately from my Start Your Art cards to making something fabulous, but I know it definitely got me pumped to finish my House quilt for the Heart of the Home project, a collaboration between Jamie Fingal, Furnishing Hope and Quilting Arts Magazine:

I’m happy with the result and it was a fun romp to make. These 14″ square quilts are given to women and their children who are transitioning out of homelessness. What a great cause!

I forgot to take many photos as I was up against the deadline, of course!

I will return to my Art Cards. It was a fun exercise and super useful for jumpstarting my art as well. If you want your own set to play with, you’ll find them here. I think it’s a clever and fun way to play!

My Blog Hop is still in progress! You can comment on my post through Sat, Nov 8th and be entered for a chance to win a free, signed copy of my book. You can visit each blogger and comment for an opportunity to win a book, although you can only win one book. The rest of the schedule follows:

Dec 1     Jenny K. Lyon                             https://quiltskipper.com/
Dec 2     Lisa Chin                                       http://www.lisachinartist.com/
Dec 3     Catherine Redford                 https://catherineredford.com/
Dec 4     Lyric Kinard                                http://lyrickinard.com/
Dec 5     Heidi Proffetty                          https://www.heidiproffetty.com/
Dec 6     Debby Ritenbaugh Brown   https://www.debbybrownquilts.com/
Dec 7     Libby Williamson                       https://libbywilliamsondesigns.blogspot.com/
Dec 8     Barbara Black                              http://bbquiltmaker.blogspot.com/
Dec 9     Cindy Grisdela                            https://www.cindygrisdela.com/
Dec 10   Teri Lucas                                      https://terificreations.com/

So join in the fun! I’ll be posting to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday where all the good links hang out.