October’s been full of small experiments that have made me get excited about my art again. My Creative Hug project, a loose structure built around a “word of the week” and a larger project, has given me that nudge I’ve needed. Each word sparks fresh activities, readings, or just little shifts in how I see things.  I’ve been watching leaves fall into puddles, shadows form on walls and paint drip randomly.Â
Here are my highlights – I have loved this process, I have not been in the studio much, but I have been doing something regularly and that’s what my aim was. I want to honor slowing down in the winter, without abandoning my art completely.
My mindful photographs inspired by my word of the weeks, plus my painting and experimenting and some sketching at Avebury. My words were curiosity, mystery, serendipity and liminality – such juicy subjects!
It’s not too late to join me in November, you’ll get four prompts and some ideas of what you might do with them. Nothing heavy, this is meant to be a restful time.
My continuing painting
I’ve also started a long-term experiment: one large painting each month, layered over the previous one. Good or bad, it gets covered up! Inspired by Judy Tuwaletstiwa’s “continuing paintings,” it’s an enjoyable process.
Here’s October’s piece — soon to exist only as this photograph. You can see the process in a short time-lapse reel on Instagram.Â
Each of the seven layers will reflect a deeply personal theme, shaping both colour and mood. I already know next month’s will be very different, lighter I think!
See you next month! x
Ailsa Brims Art 
Your October word prompts were all excellent; creative catalysts… and they flowed naturally from one to the other. I’m particularly fond of liminality… Carl Jung once said, “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life…” “The paradox is one of our most valued spiritual possessions…”, so I was wondering… maybe liminality is where awareness holds the paradox… without solving it and acts simply as witness and host… and in this way, insight is allowed to mature naturally into wisdom: by allowing complexity to remain alive and dynamic, rather than being fixed into familiar form… because fixing paradox to fit our pre-formed beliefs, whether non-verbal or verbal, is where reality becomes transformed… into illusion, where the unconscious sense of disconnection arises… the ghost of truth lost…
Wow, what a thoughtful comment! I hadn’t quite seen it that way before, but I love the idea of liminality as a space that allows paradox to stay alive instead of pinning it down. That’s such a creative way to see it. Thank you for sharing 🙂