CIRCLES
Call them circles, call them dots, use a hole punch, use a template, draw them, scribble them, paint them, collage them. This is all about circles and how we make use of them.
Making circles
I love to cut circles. Sometimes I just sit and cut circles out of magazines pages or painted paper or old music scores. Just eyeballing them as I cut from a rough square shape. Then I use them up in a project and cut more. It's a way of preparing the material for projects when I'm too tired to do a lot of creating.
But, that's just one kind of collage material. I do the same with doodled flowers (especially on security envelope paper). And I make little bags (very little ones) from scraps to hold bits that are included in some of my outgoing mail.
Is all this pre-art a big deal to anyone else out there? Therapeutic or something? --Linda
Terry Owenby
Linda, I definitely believe this kind of prepping is therapeutic. Doing these small tasks force me and my normally overly busy brain to become mindful, where nothing else matters except for the task at hand. Another thing I find relaxing and therapeutic is cleaning my desk after a project is finished. I make a terrible mess when creating so putting everything away and cleaning up feels like a cleansing of the mind, as in cleansing the palette at a wine tasting. It cleanses my thoughts of one project before going to another.
Jan 25, 2015
Heleen de Vaan
'Pre-art', such a matching name!
And yes, I'm doing that, too. Not circles, but I'm drawing stamp edges on my 10x15 cards, and I'm spoolknitting (that may become snail houses - thus a kind of circles) and knitting postable squares 'in case of'. Sometimes doodling or drawing snail mail snails on envelopes
Not therapeutic, I think, but to fill lost minutes. As for finishing mail art I need more time, those fragmented minutes (between tasks and other duties) are frustrating, but turn out to be ideal for creating pre-art :-)
Jun 28, 2016
Francis Lammé
I call this Bringing It To The next Level. Which means cutting up bigger pieces, cutting strips and tiny elements, releasing pictures from their context. Gluing snippets together to form larger pieces, mini collages and abstract collages to cut up. Using the last stickers from sheets to put them in a tin of eyecatchers and mini-deco. Sorting papers by color and feel. Prepping postcards with paint.
It is nice to do when I creatively clean up and put things in more inspiring arrangements. When I know what to do with the elements I feel less obstructed by fuzzy cutting or searching for the right element to lift the whole.
I won't call it therapeutic, I would call it prepping to make the best use of the creative flow when it's finally there again. It also gets my brain in the mood to think of all the wonderful things to do with these materials.
Jan 10, 2021