Creatures.

Creatures., originally uploaded by kaliji.

Doodling can be terrifying for perfectionists. The best, meaningful, doodles arise out of the nothingness where the act of their creation lacks intention and awareness. The fish and horned figure were doodles such as this that kept tugging at me to be cultivated and used. The bear in the last post was born of an image transfer gone horribly wrong. My sharpie followed the remnants of the paper that was supposed to transfer the image and a bear emerged. Consequently its leg was created with intention through the recreation of that mistake. I like to believe these creatures show themselves for a reason.

If doodling scares you too try this:

❶ Close your eyes and with a thick marker allow yourself to make a continuous mark on the page. Stare at the result. Turn it around. Do you see anything? Then make what appears in your mind's eye more apparent. Trace it. Work with it. Let it grow. Or leave it as is and smile.

❷ Or take a piece of paper and coat it with a thin layer of acrylic medium or plain old glue. Place it on a page in your journal and burnish with a spoon or the implement closest to you. Tear the paper away before the glue dries and doodle around what remains. 

About that onion skin, M.M. was corrupted by my foray into potato worship. As a result, she preserved the skins from onions which went on to flavor bean soup and gave them to me in the beautiful red netting they came in figuring that I would enjoy "doing something" with them. She was right :) After taking pictures of those papery wrappings I had to glue one into molie. I can't wait to start a vegetable garden and dig my hands into the earth. To use the inedible remnants.

xo Lara