My Alphabet Superset: The A to Z of Encaustic Monoprinting

As promised in my last post I want to give you the details on my next project.

Between now and the beginning of April, I will be following along with the Alphabet Superset project by artist Campbell Walker a.k.a Struthless. If you have yet to hear of this guy check him out. His YouTube channel is full of content about the mental game around productivity and creativity. I find him incredibly smart, entertaining, and inspiring. Also, he just happens to be an artist, YouTuber, author, podcaster, and a new dad. (Seriously, how does he do it?)

The Alphabet Superset is a structured creative challenge for any creator in any medium designed to "set your creativity on fire!" as Struthless says. The Aim of the project outwardly is to create a cohesive body of work. Inwardly the aim is to push past mental limits that stop one from reaching their potential. 

The challenge is to make something every week for 26 weeks (with 4 break weeks), around 26 topics of your choice, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet. While the topic changes weekly, everything else stays the same. Your medium, style, output size, and theme are fixed. Your topics, A to Z, are free.

“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self.”

— Igor Stravinsky

Technically the project was announced and started a few weeks ago. However, due to time constraints, I was not able to start at that time. So for the next few weeks, I'll be playing catch-up. Then I will try to stay on pace with the project while attempting to find balance with all of my other business goals and parenting duties.

For my Alphabet Superset starting next week, I will explore the A to Z of encaustic monoprinting with mixed media. I'll work small (8 x 10) and aim to share at least one print for each letter of the alphabet on my Instagram account. (So if you want to follow along you have to jump over there to check it out!)

The goal of this project is the exploration through PLAY! I'll be experimenting and playing with mixed media through encaustic monoprinting. I'm interested in exploring what is possible (and the limitations) of this medium. 

So each week as I explore different topics and media there will be...

FAILURE!

😱

Yeah, like most artists, (hell, most people) I find that is a big scary word. But something we tend to forget as we get older is that failure comes hand-in-hand with learning. 

FAIL = First Attempt In Learning

So as I work through my ABCs of mixed media in monoprinting not everything I create will be gallery-worthy. Or as the kids these days say "Instaworthy". But my goal is to share the work, what I learn, and perhaps a bit of the process anyway. So don't judge my FAILs too harshly, another pretty post is just a scroll away. 😜