Colour of The Month

After completing two yearlong projects – Daily Oak ("one tree, two positions from which a photo is taken on every day that I am in town, pictures of ‘guest trees’ on days that I am not") and Daily Mail done collaboratively with Kathy Loomis ("an e-mail per day with a picture of 'something') – Uta Lenk in Southern Bavaria, Germany has a new project: Colour of the Month ("going through the color wheel of primary and secondary colors I take a picture of something of that color on that day")...

Why did you decide to do this project? I loved the regularity of Daily Art as I experienced it in my projects together with Kathy Loomis, and my Daily Oak Project. I would have liked to do another tree after the conclusion of Daily Oak but did not find a different species in the vicinity that fit my requirements (easily accessible so that getting there would not take too long, single tree). I wanted to concentrate on color to increase my awareness of color, color range, color gradation, and “Colour of the month” has certainly been a successful project in that respect.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? The Daily Oak project has taught me a lot about trees in general, old trees in particular, and oaks as such. I believed myself to be aware of issues in nature before, but realized that there is still a lot more to learn. My family was affected in that they learned to accept my daily going to the tree. Sometimes I would ask my husband to take the little detour so I could take the picture of the day. If the sun broke through unexpectedly on a particular day my husband had learned to read the bounce of my step on the stairs as indicating whether I was going to see the tree... The Daily Mail project has heightened my awareness about what we see when we care to look, and what we overlook when we just trod through life. And it was interesting to get to know a person mainly through e-mails and pictures. That was the best art project of my entire life!

See all of Uta's projects HERE.

365 Days of Color

David Hoffmann in Minneapolis, Minnesota is making 365 Days of Color. he explains, "Starting with the color red, I will create an art piece around that color, changing colors every other month, working my way through the rainbow."...

Why did you decide to do this project? Every new year I like to take on a challenge.  I decided one of the areas I wanted to take on was my artistic side of my life.  I love to create but seem to do it in spurts; a month or 2 here, a few weeks there, ...  So I figure this would be a great way to keep me being creative at least once a day.  Plus I want to use this to inspire my elementary students, to take something on and grow.  That art can just be plain fun!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? This is day 20.  So far, this project has helped to have more focus.  Instead of just randomly doing a project (and hoping it'll get done), I need to schedule a time to be creative into my day, whether it's 15 minutes or a whole afternoon.
I'm also having to challenge my perfectionist side when it comes to my art.  Sometimes, the project just has to be done because the day is almost over.

Along that note, I also am just putting it out there.  I post a link to my blog/project on Facebook everyday whether I love the project or not.  For a long time, I wouldn't show that many people my art because it wasn't perfect or quite done yet. In fact one of the pieces for this project, I sent an advanced apology because I wasn't a big fan of it.  It ended up being one that a lot of people really like.   With all this after 20 days, I can't wait to see how this journey ends after 366 days!

See all of David's colors HERE.

Color 365

Tera Dahlby in Oklahoma is documenting Color 365...

Why did you decide to do this project? Other people's 365 projects intrigue me, and I decided to give it a go myself. I have loved color for as long as I can remember and since I am also trying to learn how to use my camera and take more pictures on a committed basis, it seemed like a good project to try.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? So far it keeps me even more aware of color around me. It broadens my view, while making me notice detail. And I'm using my camera a lot more which I am happy about. On a recent trip I took, it made me look at things a little differently~ from the sites, to the food I was eating, always looking for a great color to post. It is also fun because those around me have started noticing color as well...I will hear, "Hey, this is a great color, Tera!" Its fun to look through a different perspective sometimes.

See all of Tera's colors HERE.

Year in Blue

Johannah Willsey in Richmond, VA is documenting a Year in Blue...

Why did you decide to do this project? Several friends started 365 projects around the beginning of 2011. I saw how much enjoyment and satisfaction the projects brought them, but I had no particular inspiration for a project of my own. One day, daydreaming while my children played, I thought the color blue would make an interesting focus for a daily photography project. It seemed a throw-away idea at first, but it stuck with me all day, and I took my first blue photo that evening.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? My primary artistic medium is mosaic, but that work is on the back burner for now. I had been missing the sense of purpose and personal satisfaction garnered from regular creative work. Meanwhile, I’ve been working to improve my photography but needed an “excuse” to take and share artistic photos, something beyond my children’s daily antics and the passing of the seasons in my backyard.

 This project has met both those needs, the regular creation of art and the improvement of my photography. I have been enthused at how quickly I meet the goals I set for myself, whether those goals are technical aspects with which I wish to become comfortable, new ways to look at and photograph the world, or challenges to my emotional limitations. Working on this project has set up a sort of feed-back loop with my mosaic work, in that I first thought of myself as an “artist” through mosaics, which helped give me the confidence to move forward with photography, and I now find myself applying lessons learned through this photography project to my mosaic work. I have a broader, stronger sense of myself an artist as a result.

See all of Johannah's blues HERE.

Here's Looking At Hue

Anonymous is doing a project cataloging inspirational work by color called Here's Looking At Hue...

Why did you decide to do this project? 
Part 1: Why I started HLAH
Here's Looking At Hue was created as a tool to catalog the designs, art, typography, photography and other found material that inspired me.

Part 2: The evolution of HLAH
After a few postings, it occurred to me that I wanted HLAH to be more than a website where images are stored. I had designed it with infinite scroll, so you didn't have to click over to see more images, and I enjoyed that feature, but for the times, when I really just needed one image and I had to scroll all the way through I realized it would be more valuable if you could sort the pictures by what you needed and not just browse. So, I began cataloging the images by color and created the menu bar at the top so I could easily sort the images as I needed.  For people making mood boards or other inspirational pieces, HLAH can be a handy tool. Not only can they sort the images by color and find that perfect Aqua picture. The content is also refreshed daily, so they are viewing new fodder for thought, while still having access to my library of previous posts.

The second reason for evolving the site was to actually resist the ease of reposting the images. The reason for this are is two fold: 1) I feel it encourages people to actually seek out and explore artists and images that move them. 2) To try and prevent the avalanche effect. When I say avalanche effect I mean when users repost something so quickly and often that they create an avalanche of that one artist or image which circulates over and over, and results with the members of the community only seeing a limited amount of content.

Part 3: Future of the site.
I would love to create a community of catalogers as this project expands and bring together people with vast interests to collect what they find interesting. I see the categories ranging from art to science and everything in between.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Taking this project on has forced me to simplify my life. I prioritize differently and make decisions about what I do based on the fact that I have to find time to: 1) find work that is inspiring, 2) curate the images so they tell a new story, 3) find time to post and 4) still run my freelancing business. When time wasters come up like wanting to sit down and watch the whole first season of a TV series (mad men*cough*east bound and down), it makes that decision easy to identify and remove because I know it isn't as satisfying as discovering something new. Don't get me wrong, I think down time is valuable, and by no means do I think of myself as an all work and no play person. But I feel empowered and honestly want to work on my blog, and that is a good feeling.

Building this site has really exposed me to the community for artists that exists online.  I’ve been astounded how friendly and open-minded people are and I’ve made a lot of acquaintances on Twitter of folks that support HLAH - their comments and feedback is invaluable.

I look forward to where the rest of the year takes me.

See all of Anonymous's year of color HERE.