Okay so the last couple of days I’ve been feeling pulled back to paper and color:

So I was thinking….  I know I need to get back into expressing parts of me that aren’t readily expressed in dyeing yarns or even in knitting.

So, I took a sheet of blank paper, drew my margins:

and then created circles:

Five circles, one for each day of the normal work week.  The challenge – to put SOMEthing into one of the circles each day — maybe on waking, or during a rest break while working, or in the evening to sum up my mood of the day.

It doesn’t much matter what goes into the circles: maybe something about my mood, or some good thing of the day, or an upset.  And it doesn’t have to be detailed and fancy.  Doesn’t have to be a ‘thing’, could be just waves and shapes and doodles.  Doesn’t even have to fill the circle.  As long as I pick up one or more color pencils and put SOMEthing into one of the circles.  And it doesn’t matter which order I fill them in.

The spaces in between the circles will be used on the weekends to summarize or tie together the elements of the week.

I used a salad plate to outline the circles, but if you want to try this experiment you can use whatever round object works best for you. Or you can use regular paper and make one circle per sheet if that’s your thing.

The important parts:  Put something into one of the circles each day, don’t spent a lot of time (about 30-45 minutes is plenty) doing it, and don’t put a lot of thought into what it ‘should’ be.  Just use color and apply it in whatever way feels right and pay attention to what you are doing right then — notice how color plays with shapes, and together they play with size and orientation to each other.

I don’t subscribe to a lot of supernatural, mystical, metaphysical, “woo-woo” stuff, but I know that art therapy often works the same way yoga, meditation, jogging, and even knitting work — it’s a way to quiet the mind and release whatever distractions and tensions might be casting shadows on your days.  And I say that because I have allowed (or been duped into allowing) a lot of negative stuff get in my own way.  So this is mostly an exercise for me, but I’m sharing it because other people have shadows hanging over themselves.

I won’t post daily updates on this project, but will show you next weekend what happened.