Color Your Day

I was reading about a feeling notebook last night and I came up with an idea.  The idea for the notebook was not to write your feelings in it but to color them.  You buy a small notebook and at the end of the day (or even during the day) you pick a color to represent the day you are having and color the page in that color.  It gets you out of your head of words and into your heart of feelings.  Your heart is where a lot of art originates.

 

I liked that idea but I decided to do something a little different.  I want to play more with my colored pencils on fabric so instead of a little pocket notebook, I am going to use a strip of fabric and my pencils. 

 

I am going to start with a 2 inch wide strip of fabric and make my daily colorings about 1 ½ wide.  I think it is going to be interesting to see what color I choose for each day.  And also interesting to see how the color changes from day to day.

 

As I was reading this, I thought it would be a great idea to do with kids.  Have them pick out a color that shows how they feel and let them use that color all over the page.  It might help them release that feeling in the act of coloring, especially if you have them color fast.

 

It might even do the same for adults.  If you are having a frustrating day, pick your color and cover that page quickly to get the frustration out.  Then again, if you color that page (or fabric) slowly it might also calm that feeling down and help you relax.

 

You don’t want a big piece of paper (or fabric).  You might find a small pocket notebook or cut a piece of copy paper into fourths.  And you don’t want to use your best crayons or colored pencils for this.  In fact for children, you might want to start with a box of 6 or 8 crayons and maybe use the big ones to make bigger strokes with the crayon and cover the paper faster.  The other idea is the fewer the choices of crayons the easier the decision it is for little ones  (and maybe big kids too).

 

What I like about this idea is that it also gets adults and children using feelings to create art.  It would be great if after doing this for a while, the red you choose to display your anger starts to look like a flower and not just a page of red pigment. I don’t know of many people who stay very angry after looking at flowers.

 

I personally am hoping it will encourage me to work with colored pencils on fabric more.  If it becomes part of my daily routine, it might be a go-to form of embellishment of my art quilts.  I will let you know how it goes for me.

 

©2021  Cheryl Fillion