Thing a Day

Winter Crow Flying  6" by6" Acrylic on Canvas

A friend tipped me off to this Thing A Day online event that takes place during the month of February.  The idea is that every day you make something new and then post it at the Posterous site.  This is their 5th year running it - and there are over 490 participants.  The rules are very simple: make something new every day (no old stuff you just want to pull up and share now), and post it.  People do all kinds of creative things - fabric and textile projects, photos, recipes, poems, paintings, etc.  Since it's so open, I figured that I could at least come up with some small thing each day - and if time allows, something a little more involved.  I like the idea of pushing myself a little every day.

I've decided that my theme will be crows.  I love them.  They're right up there with ravens, in my book.  But we have more crows for me to watch than ravens.  In 1982 I wrote a poem about them - and keep going back to it in my mind.  Now that I'm painting I can explore their shapes and habits in other ways.

I may also work pomegranates into some of the work in the days ahead - I'm not sure why, but the combination of crows and pomegranates is very engaging.  I did recently finsh reading Sue Monk Kidd's Travelling with Pomegranates, which certainly brought up some of the imagery of that intriguing fruit - but I've been thinking of doing something with them for awhile, anyway.

I'm excited to see what lies ahead.

How about you?  What are you dreaming up these days?