Creativity Tip:
 Making a Yellow Tape Muse
Artellagram 12-8-13


"Marney's Musings" in this Artellagram brought forward the idea of the Yellow Tape Muse -- one who helps us whenever we feel like we are being measured by someone else's standards.

To take this concept and make it even more relevant to you, one method is to make a piece of art to remind you of the healing power of your Yellow Tape Muse and her message to replace each self-criticism -- either external or internal -- with a compliment, instead.

Here are a couple of renderings I enjoyed doing:

1. Drawing with Prismacolor Markers:



These versatile markers are so great because they allow for lots of different stroke styles and blending techniques, and the colors are so bright and vivid! I am by no means skilled at drawing but the colors are fun to use and allow me to experiment with blending color, much as I would do with watercolors. For both drawings, I drew the bodies first, and then filled in the background spaces with large blocks of color. I used the fine point of the markers to get some finer details in a few places, mainly the outline of the body and the hair.

Three "measuring tapes", placed on either end of the spread, as well as in the center, add unity to the whole piece, and tie it back into Yellow Tape Muse's theme. As I drew the measuring tape images, I created my own increments of measurement, representing society's judgments and how they affect body image. My increments of measurement were:

Gorgeous -- Nice and Perky -- Getting Risky -- Better Watch It -- Way Too Much Juice -- She Must Be Lazy -- What a Slob -- No Way -- Now What

Come up with your own increments of measurement, as a way to liberate yourself from whatever "yellow tape" you are measuring yourself against!

These curvy Yellow Tape Muses remind me that I am not governed by society's ruler.

2. Repurposed Art:


This piece is the ultimate in repurposed art, as I combined an existing collage and poem to digitally create a new piece of art. I scanned a larger collage that I once made from vintage photographs. I added measuring tape digitally, cropped a small section, and inserted a passage from a poem I had written:

real freedom happens

when you finally see

that nobody else's

yellow tape can ever

measure to the height

of your colors

Two existing creative pieces now brought together to represent a Yellow Tape Muse!

What will you try for your Yellow Tape Muse?
In Artella's AlphaBetter Muse Workshop, you will find inspiration and support to get past challenges and create the life of your dreams by 26 empowering Muses. You can learn more about them here.


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