Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Wreck This Journal: Intro & Coffee Stains

I found this great book on Amazon called Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith. I’m having a bit of a creative crisis and needed something new to spark and spice things up a bit. The prompts in this book are great – really outside the box. Some of the things I have already finished include numbering all the pages and (gasp!) cracking the spine. Now it won’t lay flat, which is what my perfectionist mind really likes. I am stepping out of my comfort zone. I love books and tend to treat books well. Now I am forced to think differently about what is in front of me and of my art materials.

Wreck This Journal: Coffee Stains

This is my coffee page. The directions: “Pour, spill, drip, spit, fling your coffee here.” I followed each instruction. The spitting part was fun! The coffee soaked through at least 10 other pages. I have officially wrecked this journal!

The byline of the book is “To create is to destroy.” My mind has latched onto this idea. You have to destroy a perfectly blank piece of paper to make a drawing. You have to ruin a perfectly good tube of paint to make a painting. You have to shake things up now and again to stay fresh.

I decline to spoil the future fun by spilling the rest of the book’s activity secrets now. You’ll just have to keep reading to find out!!

So go out there today and create/destroy something!! Let me know what you did in the comments!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The coffee soaking through 10 other pages practically makes me flinch. I think I need this book!

Anonymous said...

You even spit artistically! Hope you and Mr. M. have a stupendous new year. xoxoxoxo

nancy said...

Oboy! I can hardly wait for the next installment. When I splatted coffee on my paper, I put a bit of white glue in it. It gave a bit of a different kind of splat pattern, but was definitely not spittable!
Nancy

The Reluctant Aquarian said...

this looks like fun. I don't have any trouble wrecking books or journals, but it looks like this could give me even more ideas. Yeehaw!

Anonymous said...

I had to reread that one part, "Did she say spit??"

Cool project - can't wait to see what comes next!

Anonymous said...

I bought that exact book for my daughter for christmas. It has been fun. Have you mailed to your self yet? (as the back cover suggests)

Unknown said...

I've done this journal with my kids to help them learn to color outside the lines and what is beautiful to one may not be beautiful to another and that's OKAY!
Have fun and keep taking pictures!
(I think there is a flickr group for this book too.)

Sara at Soap Rehab said...

Sounds very cathartic! :)

Post a Comment

Without your comments, I'm just talking to myself! Say something before they come to take me away. Ha ha, ho ho, hee hee.

ShareThis