Artful Intentions: Week 4

Well, January is just flying by, isn’t it?

For the 4th week of our Artful Intentions art journaling project, Cilenia Curtis challenged me to create a piece using these prompts:

• Use the word seek
• Use a flower
• Use some ephemera

In case you’re wondering, “ephemera” refers to everyday items that were never meant to be collected – movie tickets, transit stubs, labels, ads, etc. As Cilenia suspected, that part was easy – after all I have a ton of it in my studio and I sell digital ephemera in my shop for those who aren’t as addicted to collecting “stuff” as I am.

Flowers? Well that’s a bit more problematic because I’m not really a flowery kinda gal. What’s a painty grungy girl to do?

“Seek” … hmmm. Hide and seek. Seek and ye shall find. Hmmm … not feeling it. Oh snap! (Seriously, did I really just say that?)  Waaaay back when I was in the corporate world, we management types spent lots of time learning how to lead. One of the books we studied was Stephen R. Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – it made such a powerful impact on me that, to this day, I try to apply its principals in my life. The essence of the book is that all change – any change – has to come from within. And that you have a choice … maybe not in what happens to you, but in how you respond/react to what happens to you. I encourage you to get the book – there’s even a Kindle version so you can read on almost any device. You can find these “habits” easily by searching on the internet, but, so you have an idea of where I”m coming from, here they are:

• Be Proactive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Put First Things First
• Think Win-Win
• Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the Saw

And that Fifth Habit is what I thought of when Cilenia challenged me to use the word “seek.” Honestly? I think if everyone practiced this Habit alone, the world would be a better place. I did the 12 x 12 first, and then, was so love with it, I did another, slightly different version, in a 4×3 size which will be incorporated into my Documented Life journal. There’s lots of blending layers going on in both, including the ephemera, which is so blended that it almost disappears. I very much like the effect, especially on the smaller piece. But I honestly don’t know which one I prefer. What about you? (When you hover over the image, you’ll see the arrows that let you go back and forth between them.)

Until next time! Thanks for stopping by my blog!