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As I told you at the beginning of April, I embarked on The 100 Day Project this year.
On week 2, we had a long painful power outage. My ArtCave is located in our basement and it was about 10ºC (about 50ºF) inside our home. So let me tell you: no matter how badly I wanted to go paint in there, it did not happen for five days.

On the positive side

• It forces me to stretch my creative muscles
• I need to work on not boring myself
• It’s okay for me to explore new color palettes
• I have no pressure, or almost none
• I will end up with 100 paintings in the same series: to me, that’s huge!

On the less positive side

• I do feel bad when a day is skipped
• Some days, it’s like I am just repeating what I have already painted
• I am afraid to get bored eventually
• what the fuck will I do with 100 paintings?!

Some favorites so far:

Happy Sunday!
I feel like this blogpost will go well with my Soul Whisper (eh, I am going all in with this one in 2019!). I will be sharing 10 things about me. You might or might not know that about who I am, I am curious to know how many you are actually aware of 😉
Okay… here goes:

10 things about me:

1. I got my first tattoo when I was 16 years old. My Mom gave her consent after I went ballistic about it for more than two years. And she was in the room, bombarding the artist about hygiene question, the whole process. I now have seven tattoos. It is not the end of it though!
2. I got married at 19 years old. My husband actually proposed to me after 2 weeks of being together, but he officially asked my Mom after that. We are still much in love after nearly 16 years together.
3. I started my studies to become a psychoanalyst, to be a cooking chef, to be a French ASL teacher and a French/English translator. I finished none of those. That’s my one regret in life.
4. I suffer from misophonia. The fact that there is a name for that shitty thing that put my Mom and me in many fights over shared meals proved I was not crazy…
5. I started art journaling in 2008 and mixed media around 2009. But first, I was creating home décor with collage and textured stuff.
6. I was raised Catholic, went to Bible studies and got as far as the Confession. But a major life event threw me off the Catholic wagon. Then, I turned to Buddhism, and I discovered Wicca when I was around 12 and it shifted my perspective on life and on Humanity. I used to hide it from my Mom but once she knew, she was cool with it as long as I drew protection before every magical action. I created a forum dedicated to white magic that became quite big in the francophone community. Now, I am not a Wiccan but a regular Witch with a belief system of her own…
7. Dirty under nails gross me out. I am a messy mixed media artist, so…
8. I am obsessed with the Moon and anything happening in the Sky and outside of Earth.
9. One of my love languages is giving and receiving gifts. If I offer something to you, don’t doubt it comes from a place of deep appreciation.
10. I started writing in a diary since I was 7 years old. I still do my best to write every day but do not feel awful if a few days pass without it. It is partly how I process. I have had this Mémoir idea since I was 23… When my daughters ask questions about my past, I often tell them “the answer is in one of my diaries… you will know once I’m dead” 😉

Tell me something about you that could surprise me

At the end of 2018, I had this gut feeling telling me that 2019 would be a turning point in my life. That it would pretty much feel like Flight or Fight in many areas of it. And so far, this has been true… Many decisions to be taken, choices to be discussed. About the mundane and sometimes more life-altering.

Do you have a guiding word for 2019?

Being unapologetic in being me

This year, my husband decided that I will find my way back to my Self. And it comes to being outside how I feel inside.
I sometimes feel like I am schizophrenic because there are SO many sides of my personalities, sides that don’t necessarily make sense put together.
I have not straightened my hair for years now, wearing them au naturel instead. With the fibro, it’s very hurtful on my shoulders to keep up but that is part of me owning my heritage. However, sometimes I like actually being able to DO something with that mass of hair. My daughter spent 3 hours flat ironing my hair earlier this month; we put Queer Eyes on Netflix, chatted and laughed and I am very thankful for her asking me if she could do this for me.
I am also getting more unapologetic in the time my body and my soul need to rest, fully and deeply. It means being less productive in a way, but I realized that it’s a lie: I am more productive when I am rested.

Being unapologetic within my creative practice

Since the beginning of April, I started the 100 Day challenge and I have not painted a Nixie in a while.  I sometimes feel like I am abandoning them but I know in my guts this is temporary. Nixies keep showing up in my mind but they want to come out as big as possible and right now, that’s just not an option… I don’t have the room for them. By the way, I have a lot of them coming in my new shop in the next few weeks but you can check my Etsy shop and my new shop already, maybe one is calling your name and you just don’t know it yet 😉

Welcome to this new Gratitude Friday! Feel free to share with me your (partial or full) gratitude moments in the comments; that way I can hold joy for you ✿ (you know that makes me happy to make you happy).

Oh my goodness, so many things are happening right now in my corner… Some I don’t want to talk about at the moment, some I am really excited about! What makes your heart happy right now?

This week, I am thankful for:

• Amidst The Chaos, the new album from Sara Bareilles, is out!
• Part 2 of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is out, too
• Our lives will be changing starting this coming Monday
• Editing videos
• Rest when my body decides to shut down
• Sunshine and snow melting
• Daily journaling and what comes out of it
• Highlighters
• Music in general
• Doing The 100 Day Challenge and the Artfully Wild Blog Along.

This week’s soundtrack:

It’s okay to stay in the comfort zone as long as it is not forever.

I am the kind of girl who, when a comfort zone is found, tends to stay in it for quite a while. If there is a technique I love, I will use it until I’ve squished it entirely.
But there’s also this part of me that gets bored pretty easily. This is why I love Mixed Media so much I guess, because I can’t really get bored. I can discover, play with media as much as I want, use this with that but try a different way the next time etc.

There is no mistakes, just learning curves.

Doesn’t knowing this take some of the pressure off? It sure does.
I feel so complete when experimenting with new ways to build texture on my art. I love the feeling brought by having some «ahah» moments when an idea becomes something really cool in reality.
It used to be in my nature to have the need to control everything. I used to plan every part of a painting beforehand. But now, I am an intuitive artist. I channel the Universe’s messages through my artwork and that feels so good.
You might think that I am weird but that’s okay. This year, my Soul Whisper is UNAPOLOGETIC so here I am. this is me.