Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Messy Book

Despite my best intentions, I have been absent from here longer than I wished to be again.  But, no use dwelling and all that... I'm going to just jump right back in.

I recently joined Lisa Wright's Messy Group, focused around a book by Keri Smith entitled Mess.  It is filled with exercises that encourage one to just get messy.  Very liberating... especially for those of us who may have a touch of the control freak in us. 

Several of the other participants got their book a few weeks ago and have jumped in with both feet.  My book arrived a week or so ago and, rather than madly jumping in as I usually do with new books, I peeked at a few pages and then put it down on the corner of my desk.  A day or so later, I picked it up and flipped through a page or two, and then gingerly placed it back on the desk, looking at it out of the corner of my eye every so often and telling myself that I really NEEDED to get going.  I read posts from those more daring than I about placing their book out in the rain and the snow, putting moldy items in bags and placing them in the book, using raw eggs (for what, I'm still not sure).  I began to think that perhaps this really isn't for me.  The idea of an egg on a plate disgusts me.  In a book is just beyond what I can endure!

Last night, I picked up the book again and randomly opened it to a page with grid.  The instructions were to select ten colors in any medium and fill in the spaces of the grid in a pattern.  Here's where it gets kooky, folks.  Somewhere in the grid, you have to INTENTIONALLY insert a mistake.

Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect by any stretch.  I make LOTS of mistakes.  But not intentionally.  When I do make a mistake, I agonize over it. I try to fix it (inevitably making it far worse!).  But, this didn't require raw food so I thought to myself, it's now or never.  I pulled out some new, very juicy Prismacolor markers and went to town on this grid.   I used bold, bright colors.  I didn't care if I stayed neatly within the lines. 




And, horror of horrors, I did not put anything behind the page to keep these bold, juicy markers from bleeding through the page.  I know, I know... you're thinking, "wow, she lives on the edge!"  But it turns out that it created this kind of cool, honeycomb like pattern on the next page, for which the exercise was to use all the colors you have on hand to fill in the 5x5 box on the page. 



Now, I think the fact that I didn't even stay within the 5x5 box should surely grant me a pass on the egg exercises, no??

On a slightly different note, when I look at these pictures on my computer, they are vertical, but when I post them here or to facebook, they are showing up horizontally (rotated to the right). Has anyone else had that problem or know why it is happening (or more importantly, how to fix it?)  I took these pictures with my phone versus scanning them as I used to do (and I never had this problem with the scanned pics).  Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

8 comments:

  1. The rotation thing is just because you're working on Keri's mess book. It's all part of her plan.....


    Hello! You're in... you're going over the lines... you're breaking free.... you're finding interesting things happening on other pages where you didn't expect them... it's working!!

    Keep going... More please!

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  2. love your use of the bright bold colours!

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  3. oh that book sounds wonderful!!! messy!!!! love your new pieces and great to see you back!!! no idea bout the photos...that is super strange....

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  4. I love your bright page - and your 'mistake', the print-off on the next page. A bit more work on that and it could look really messy. As far as the photos are concerned mine keep coming up wrong when I put them on the Facebook page -but I put that down to my lack of ability with all this new-fangled stuff. My first computer, Apple, had a memory of 125K, and I haven't moved on much since then!

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  5. It is kind of stressful; at times, but it is a lot of fun... I love your page and like that it is still neat and you, I am thinking baby steps are needed... it is less stressful that way... I like the print ofn the next page... the bleed throughs in my book are all awful... would rather yours...xx

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  6. I just keep looking at my book...opening the pages, closing the pages and looking at the book!
    dana

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  7. Hooray Molly!!! I love those bright colors (and I love how it bled through to the other page)!

    xo
    Kristin

    p.s. I draw the line at a raw egg too! Hee hee!

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  8. I've had my book about a week as well and have yet to 'mess' it up. While some of the exercises might be a bit extreme for me too, I guess I just need to open it and get going! Yours is an excellent baby step.....let's see where you bravely go next!

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