Mistakes

The August theme on The Documented Life Project 2016 remains: And then again No - the power of saying no. Our art challenge was to use a self-portrait. You will be familiar with my younger self if you have been a regular reader of this blog. There she is, at 16, a people pleaser if ever there was one, but although unknown to her at that time with a steely core somewhere inside. I'm quite proud of how she turned out although there is always room for improvement, of course! I have shared my ideas on the virtues of saying no here on last week's post.

The background of this spread done in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal,  is a riot of stencilling and stamping. The stencilling was done using the medium and large stencils from the March 2016 Stencilgirl Club, as well as stencils S371 Paste Paper and the large stencil from April 2015 Club (for the blue flowers). I also collaged on bits from a flower themed paper napkin. I used a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer designed art foamie called Polka Dots (totally in love with this one!) as well as a text rubber stamp sheet from Darkroom Door.

After glueing on my self portrait I surrounded her with both written and stencilled text. The latter comes from Stencilgirl's L318 Wall of Words stencil. The hand written quotation reads: "No is a complete sentence. It does not require justification or explanation.".  I try! But not always succeed. I have however become much more aware of the occasions when the words: "I'm sorry but" are about to come out of my mouth and try and catch them before they emerge.

 Maybe one day I will be perfectly comfortable about saying no. 

Although I have made many mistakes, and will no doubt make many more, I have no regrets. Mistakes are how we learn and go on learning all through life. I do however try to avoid making the same mistake twice which is perhaps the best we can hope for.