The Critic - ATC

I just sent this in for an open theme ATC swap. I called it "The Critic" because as I was playing in my scraps I was thinking about how that nasty little internal critic raises his voice whenever I have been away from my art table for a couple of days. It is so difficult to get started on days like that. If I don't have something specific in mind when I sit down for the first time after some time away, I usually have to spend some extra time playing around to loosen up a bit - kind of like stretching and warming up before I can dance. If I don't dance for a while that warming up part takes a *lot* longer. Most of what I come up with during that warm up time is crap and last night was no exception. I was getting a little irritated and started complaining (internally) and started talking back to that internal critic. I was literally thinking something negative about feeling like I have to "measure up" (measure up to WHAT?) when I pulled out the scrap with the measuring tapes. That was the first "aha" moment of the night - that little tickle in the back of my mind that lets me know I might actually produce something during this session afterall. After that I pulled out the background paper with the definition of "create" on it and then the man. I thought to myself that that was probably what that nasty little man inside my head looked like and ta-da! The card basically made itself.

It's a very literal card made with materials I probably would have never used if I hadn't been going down that mental path at that very moment, but it represented what I was feeling at that moment so well that it still liked it. It also has that slightly dark little twist that I like. None of the papers in this card were things that I bought for myself btw. They were all received in materials swaps.