Shauna Henry's Blog

As adults, play seems to be a dirty word. We can’t play, we’re too grown up for that. Bollocks I say! Adults do not play enough. In fact I would say we need play more than children given all of the so called grown up things we feel we have to do in our lives. It’s hard as an adult to really let go and play, we seek perfection in everything we do and much like a child become frustrated easily.

Even when we think we are playing we really aren’t. How many of us just go outside to play? If we go outside at all it’s to work or exercise or to go from the house to the car. Experts say play is essential for child development. It’s how they make sense of the world around them. Why then do we stop at some point we become “adults” and think we could not benefit from play?

Week 8 of Lifebook takes us back to allowing ourselves to play. Mystele made a lovely non-pressure lesson which I absolutely adored. We played with materials, and were not focused on the final outcome. Layer upon layer upon layer were added to create backgrounds. We were then told to “cloud gaze” and see what popped out at us – only then did we start to add an actual figure or object, or whatever. It was an exciting and fun lesson.

My piece was made using graphite, Caran D’ache watercolor crayons (my favorite medium as of late), airbrushing over lace and metal screening for texture (although you can’t really see those layers anymore), gesso, finger painting, stamping, and gluing bits of paper and lace down. I then pulled my butterfly figure out of the layers and went from there. There are a few flowers which were made from my gesso fingerprints. It’s not the best piece, but I am happy with it for what it is - an experiment. Butterflies have been a recurring theme in my Lifebook work so maybe it’s time I really sat down and tried to listen to what that is telling me.
 I was so excited about this lesson giving me permission to play, that I made another picture at my day job yesterday (shhhh!). Using only a pencil, highlighter and white out and this is what I came up with.
Interesting what a few office supplies can do! Her face I went over with white out before I shook it up - you know the gross clearish white liquid that comes out if you don't shake it.

I will definitely be continuing to play on a weekly basis. In fact I’m always seeing bloggers have things to do on different days of the week (Rocking My World Friday comes to mind thanks to Carmen over at Whoopidooings), so I’m going to start a Playday Monday. Monday’s will be a good day since we are tired and stressed from starting our week and finishing our weekend – so what better way to kick off the week than with a good dose of play.

If you would like to participate I would love to see what you create through play. And don't feel limited to art. If you want to play with cooking, or gardening, or just going outside and sitting on the ground, running your feet through the grass I want to hear about it!

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Happy Playing!