Piddling....

Pid-dle [pid-l], verb (used without object), to spend time in a wasteful, trifling, or ineffective way; dawdle (often followed by around):  He wasted the day piddling around.  verb, pidd-dled, pid-dling. 

 

Today I piddled.  I am not ashamed of it.  Basically that is because I don't think piddling is ineffective in the end.  It is just a part of the creative process, at least for me.  If I piddle, seemingly wasting away minutes and hours experimenting with materials or arrangements of treasured scraps, it will pay off at some future time. I don't mean with this little experiment I am about to show you! You will have to wait and see what else is to come! But for now..........

Left Over Experiments from 8th Graders

 I started out with the scraps above.  Then I added some rubber stamping.

Altered Scraps, Stage 1

Next I rooted around in my many bins of "stuff."  I came up with some bird themed postage stamps from my father's cast off stamp collection- a gold mine!

Bird Postage Stamps

I really liked the varied textures the bird images had to offer more than the birds themselves.

More

So I ended up altering the bird stamps.  Sorry, Dad.  I couldn't resist!  But I was pretty unhappy with where I was going.

Needing Improvement

I dawdled long and hard.  

Back to Basics

Searching...I realized what I liked from the start was ALL the colors as a group in the collection from the 8th graders. 

Done Dawdling

This is what I ended up with.  It was a good way to spend a rainy day. 

"So you see, imagination needs moodling-long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering." - Brenda Ueland

Beginnings...

"Every day is a new beginning, Every morn is the world made new." -Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

And we creative people certainly welcome a new start each day! My daily starts are not merely for myself, but also for the 140 students I teach.  Eight projects for eight grades. Task #1: Build their skills and stretch their critical thinking.  Can young people understand what mixed media offers in terms of creative expression?  Are they able to learn the elements of art and principles of design and still pack a punch with a message?  You bet they can!

The Local Park

Eighth graders sure do love themselves.  They love being both an individual and part of the group.  For our 8th grade mixed media workshop, my students took photographs of the school neighborhood (our community/group) and did wonderful things to the photos in the computer lab.  The printed photos were "mixed" with "media" in the art room creating individual expressions of the community using guidance and direction from In This House by Angela Cartwright and Sarah Fishburn.

The Bead Shop

The Local High School

The Chamber of Commerce asked us to create a body of work that could hang together. 

So we decided to unify with the format and somewhat with color.  This made the students' first experience working with mixed media a little easier by eliminating some choices.  The good news: a gold, silver, and bronze medal were awarded to three students at our area competition!  Three cheers!

"A beginning is only the start of a journey to another beginning." - Anonymous