Today marks the beginning of the Sustainable Souls Project. It’s a year long artist collaboration inspired by sustainability issues and concepts. Each month, we will pick a sustainability topic and create awareness through art, using the monthly theme as inspiration. Interpretation of the theme is largely left to the creative whim of each artist. You are going to see a variety of art ranging from art journal pages to mixed media assemblage and everything in between. ( You can read more about the project here and see the full list of artists who are participating). This month’s theme centers around planet Earth and how we are all connected. I have quite a few ideas in mind for the various themes this year,but I felt it best to gather those ideas and thoughts by centering them within my art journal.

I was very drawn to the idea of depicting Mother Earth within my work, however I struggled at making her image manifest. I chose multiple words for 2017 and I wanted to make them a part of the page. My words include: focus, sustainability, and healthy living. I realized that I need to put a little more of myself onto the page as well. I chose to loosely symbolize myself within this watercolor drawing. I then wrote the words repetitively, at times substituting other words or phrases that embodied my chosen words.

The first project sparked more creative ideas and I moved forward into my art journal. Keeping with the thoughts of sustainability, I will be using old magazines as my journals this year. Inspired by an activity for the Woman Unleashed Creative Online Retreat, I used a printed photo of myself to begin this art journal spread. The magazine had an article about sustainable action in the heart of it. I chose to keep portions of the planet Earth and the phrase ” Take Action” from it’s pages. Earlier this year, I found a tattered Arabic encyclopedia at a local thrift shop. I used gel medium to add torn pages from it which depicted clocks( to represent that we don’t have time to waste) and natural history pages. I then drew a series of circles to represent Earth, intertwining them both for visual interest as well as a means to represent how we are all intertwined with the environment. I rewrote some of my words within portions of the circles. Using an image of myself was a great way to capture more of me without the pressure of having a perfect photo. I also felt like it made the words feel more concrete.

Mine is just one of several awesome projects to inspire you. Be sure to hop around and see all of them! You can find them all here, at the Sustainable Souls blog. We hope you feel inspired enough to create your own art based on the theme this month: Earth and how we are connected. If you do, please share a link in the comments section on this post or in the comments section of the Sustainable Souls blog.