I have so
many ideas in my head that I end up completely overwhelmed into
inaction. I tell myself it’s better to have too many ideas than not
enough, but sometimes I wonder.Here's what I want to do:
I want to make more physical collages. I want to create a series of photomontages. To make artist books. To make photo books. I want to play with image transfers. To make artistic wall hangings. I want to re-start my photo-a-day project. I want to create more faux postcards.
I want to create an online class in contemplative photography. To create painterly photographs using various paint programs. To work more with black and white. I want to create e-books. I want a Gelli plate. I want to paint more. To make bowls made of paper. To paint pumpkins and photograph them.
I want to do a blog post listing all the creative ideas I come up with in a week. I want to do more long-exposure photography. I need to clean my cameras’ sensors. I need a rigger brush. I need to do more with antique keys — I have a whole jar of the damned things. I want to create a series of mini-collages. I’ve done three so far . . .
See what I mean? I feel like woodpeckers are pounding on my head. All. The. Time.
The result is that I’m excited and enthusiastic about doing all this stuff, but where to begin? I end up sitting on the couch with my iPad looking at Pinterest and other people’s blogs about what THEY are doing, which gets me all stoked up, but then depressed that I have all this talent and I’m not creating very much.
So then I read a blog post by Leo Babauta, who has a blog called “zenhabits.” Here’s a link to the post: http://zenhabits.net/act/
He suggests telling someone I’m going to do something. Then carve out time to do it, even if it’s just 10 minutes a day. He recommends starting small. Then really commit — post your intention on your blog, on Facebook, on Twitter. Tell 100 people about it.
So, here’s my plan: Concentrate on one thing: collage. Spend at least 30 minutes a day working on physical collages. Thirty minutes is easy. (I did two hours this morning and thought it was just one hour.) I have the papers. I have the substrates. I have the tools.
I would love to make a series of 50 collages, each 4-3/4 x 4-3/4 inches square. By working small and by working on perhaps five at a time, I will eventually teach myself how to use this medium.
By committing 30 minutes (or more, if I feel like it) daily, I will become more familiar with the materials I have, how to manipulate them, how to affix them, and how to quickly come up with and execute a composition.
And at the end of this project? Well, I will have created a lot of images to upload to Fine Art America. I might have enough to create a self-published book. Maybe an e-book. Maybe I can sell the collages.
And I will have photographed the collages in various states of unfinished-ness so that I can put them into the computer where I can add, change, transmogrify, and otherwise alter them to create even more salable images. The image I posted the other day — “Bayshore Sunset” — is the result of one of those physical collages that I photographed and then altered in Photoshop. Here’s the link: http://carolleigh.blogspot.com/2014/06/latest-work-bayshore-sunset.html
So that’s the plan, Stan. I’m announcing it here in my blog and will also post it in my oh-so-forgiving alumni group. There. I’ve got my 100 people covered.
©Carol Leigh
