Day One

Day 1

Today is the first day of my 365 mosaics project.  I did complete my first piece and I thought it was ugly (I just threw together mixed scrap from an old project), and that it took too long, so I contemplated doing something else for the projects other than mosaic.

Just from day one I have already learned so much.
1) That supplies and a space must be easily accessible to create without hesitation.
2) A plan would be good -- a plan for the piece that is -- at least a rough idea.
3) I am kind of stuck on rules.

The rule thing....
So, when trying to decide on what to commit to create once a day, I struggled.  I am totally into mosaic, and I think I am good at it, but they do take some time to create -- especially the way that I create them.  I look at them like a puzzle, and puzzles can take time. Mosaic might be too time consuming to create one a day, but it is my love right now.

I knew that creating one a day (small of course) would teach me much and give me opportunity to try new techniques without committing an entire piece to an unfamiliar technique. I also didn't want the act of creating a piece a day to interfere in my larger projects that I have planned.  If I create a mosaic a day, will that detract me from wanting to do my other projects....burn out?

I thought, I could do whales as a subject to do everyday.  I'm not much of a drawing artist, but I used to be pretty good at drawing whales.  I could do that, and maybe it would even be marketable later.

Then there was the idea that there were other things that I wanted to work on, like using the found objects that have taken over my craft/bedroom, trying assemblage, and other glass projects....should I just not narrow myself to mosaic everyday?

It was contemplating the other glass projects that would require the use of my saughtering iron that I realized that supplies and tools being readily available is crucial--if I have to dig it out and find a place to plug it in, it might not get done.  This is when I realized my first self imposed rule:  If you are going to bring out the iron, it has to be used on a large projects, or many projects all at once. So, to crush the first barrier, I need to find a place for my soldering iron to live and look decorative (or at least artsy) on my desk.

Okay, the rule!!!!!!!!!  I had to look up the definition of mosaic to see if I could sneak in some assemblage and the other glass projects into the mix.....could I stretch the definition of mosaic enough to include them?  Assemblage is somewhat a mosaic, huh?  If photographers could call a bunch of boxes containing pictures a mosaic, couldn't assembling a bunch of objects together be called mosaic? Or should I just say that I will create something visually artistic every day.

Well, that is when I realized that I am a little stuck on rules.  And (and I think I read this on 365-skulls too) that there are no rules when it comes to creating art.  Well, I guess an art instructor would argue that there are some rules, but anyway, here I go, arguing for rules again.

So, I decided to forget the rules, or at least to work on forgetting rules and to just create something (a mosaic) everyday for 365 days.

I also decided to blog about it because maybe this will keep me on track.

So, here we go!