Finding my word – Expand

I’ve been looking for my word for this new year and it finally came to me – expand.

Hopefully this isn’t me physically expanding! No, it’s about my life and especially my art.

Last year I really felt I need to focus on fabric, although drawing my mandalas did venture away from that. But as the year progressed I felt as though I had restricted myself too much. If I saw something I liked that involved a medium other than fabric, I told myself I couldn’t do that. My restrictions left me feeling a bit hampered and somewhat imprisoned by my own rules.

So with this year, I will still focus on fabric, but if I want to venture off to another area, I will welcome it. Meanwhile, those passions I currently possess will be expanded.

To give you an idea of expansion, I decided while drawing my mandalas the last week that I’d draw them on small 1.5 inch wood discs. I have lots of these around from previous creative lifetimes. Working small and on wood was not only a challenge, but really fun! I could see a whole set of these mandala discs.

For several years I have been using Faber-Castell Pitt pens when drawing. I thought I’d try the Koi Watercolor Brush pens. I’ll write a comparison of the pens on a later post.

And just a few of my new mandalas on paper.

I feel that this word will not only stretch my art, but will also push me to widen what I’m already doing.

And for me, this is exciting. So have you selected your word for the year?