I join the throng

I was massively anti-art until a short while ago, and have now swung the other way. I've started keeping an art journal and am enjoying it so much it's becoming an obsession! I've been inspired by so many blogs and seen how great it can be to share experiences, that I've finally decided to overcome my technical handicaps (this is all new to me) and keep a blog on my journey into art. I'm hoping that other beginning artists might get something useful from reading about my experiments, successes, failures and I'm also hoping that any artists that browse here might have useful advice for me.

Why Messyboxbliss? Because when I get into the swing of doing my art I am fantastically messy and form a sort of huge chaotic nest of torn paper, bits of dried Golden gel medium, broken crayons, print outs, ruined palettes etc around wherever I happen to be sitting. Sometimes I look up and think of getting a cup of tea or something, see how difficult it would be to climb out and over all that and decide just to keep going...

Box because my living space is all higgledy piggledy and about the most direct opposite of a nice ordered IKEA type space that you could imagine. Most of my art supplies are kept in old cigar boxes of different shapes and sizes rather than in sensible drawers... because I love cigar boxes. And actually although I've always aspired to being tidy and organised and tell myself thousands of reasons why it would be so much better, more comfortable etc etc in reality I feel far more at home with in my chaotic nest.

Bliss because I want to discover more and more what that means for me. So far it mainly means art, and I hope that following one will expand into new other areas so that I get more happiness in my life. I would never have believed in that as a possibility until I saw the power of art at first hand. A colleague at work used to paint pictures of her old home, which no longer existed for various political reasons, from memory. From there she was inspired to go back to her homeland and not only recreate her home in real life from sourced original materials, but also regenenerate the entire community in that area, which is very poor indeed. Thanks to having witnessed what she created I never doubt the power of art and creativity now.