Why so many Art challenges in January?

And why do I want to try them all?  I feel compelled to try every one and then get so overwhelmed with choices I don't get much done at all.  My real art goal for January was to finish the portrait I started months ago. And yet it still sits on the easel looking back at me expectantly while I surf all the wonderful blog sites that are offering these wonderful journaling prompts or art classes.  Too many temptations  for a girl with art ADD. 

Here is my newest journal page prompted by the Art Journal January, Day 4, Spirals and Flowers by Milliande at:

http://www.milliande.com/Art-Journal-January-Day-4.html

Used water soluble oil pastels in the background, with a layer of white paint mixed with acrylic glaze over the top .  Added rubber stamp images and black ink pen drawings.  One comment, don't use your nice Pitt pens to draw with.  It ruined my favorite pen.  What ended up working really well was a Calligraphy  ink pen nib that you dip into an inkwell.  This type of pen works because it doesn’t get clogged with the oil pastels. 

It’s still feels unfinished so I’ll probably come back to it.

Also having Art Journal prompts this January are

Misty Mawn  at http://www.mistymawn.typepad.com/

and Kelly Kilmer: http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/ 

Suzi Blu - http://www.youtube.com/user/suziblutube

Not specifically dealling with art journals but in being creative in many ways is:

Creative Every Day challenge at:

http://www.creativeeveryday.com/creativeeveryday/creative-every-day-challenge.html

I signed up for this challenge, not specifically for prompts but to remind myself to do something creative everyday.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be art but something creative daily.   So toward that effort I have worked on another journal page not shown here and have also worked on creating 10 double sided background pages for a new art journal book(let) I want to make for myself.  (Why do I always feel the desire to start a new journal even when the last one still has empty pages in it? I suppose that question is best left for another post.)

More than once I’d read that having premade backgrounds ready for adding images and journaling makes it easier to create art pages on the fly.  So before Christmas I painted a few pages very simply using some left over paint and found that it worked for me while I was away on vacation.  These were pages that I would have otherwise put off until another time and then never would have gotten around to because the inspiration passed.    Having the pages ready (and remembering to take along a glue stick) allowed me to let my inspiration bloom.  I think I will do this much more often.

I’m also contemplating joining One World One Heart event to make some new blogging friends and I’m wondering what would make a nice giveaway. Would anyone want what I have to give? Hummmm  I’ll think on that.

Oh and about that portrait I talked about earlier, even though it’s saying ‘finish me’, there is something comforting about it sitting there staring at me unblinkingly (is that a word?).  Someday I‘ll tell you why.

So what challenges are you taking part in this year?