And it turned out to be...

Drum roll... the mystery ingredients were actually fairly tame for me.

I pre-heated my oven to 200 degress centrigrade, then greased and lined a 12" cake tin. These had nothing to do with the mess I was about to make, but I'm on a diet and acting out making cake helps with the craving.

Next I spread some lovely and thick PVA glue over my page, trying to completely cover the large Question Mark sitting in the middle (that looks like gauze, but isn't). I sprinkled over a light mixture of salt and sugar. This makes interesting dents in the glue and looks like the surface of the moon.

This seemed a little mundane. It needed a certain something... I hit upon it at last. Bicarbonate of soda - it reacts with vinegar, I wonder what happens when it comes into contact with PVA? The answer was not much, so I sprayed a touch of water on which made a bit of fizz.

Once the whole concoction was nice and dry - having spent a cosy evening in the airing cupboard - I drizzled over a heady mix of alcohol inks which slipped over the glue and sank into the sandy texture. Lovely!

Can you imagine a whole painting completed in this method! My mouth is watering at just the thought. I see am abstract bunch of tropical flowers dripping with hummingbirds.

Well onto yesterday's competition. Nobody guessed quite exactly right (frankly, I'm not surprised!). So I went for 'nearest the bull'. Congratulations Giggles - you win a place on my course which starts on Monday! I'll be in touch by email.

What on earth is this?

It's not often I go a week without blogging and I am sorely missing the opportunity to scribble and share. However, with just a few days to go until my eCourse starts and plenty of other work and commitments then something had to give.

I've come up with some great posts while in the car, but the witty gems just didn't want to come back to me once I was in front of a keyboard. I've also been hitting the gym!

One of my 'other commitments' has been the Messy Book Group where we continue to experiment and push the boundaries of what the uninitiated might call chaos, but we call art. This week has seen car tyres painted brightly and then driven over the book, a snake persuaded to make mud paintings and some mysteries involving unknown substances.

I'm in the unknown substance camp. What on earth do think I used to make these interesting textures and patterns?

Anyone that guesses correctly goes in the draw to win a free place on my creativity course which starts on Monday. There are five 'components' to guess! I'll pick tomorrow morning (UK time 9am-ish... it's Saturday.... I might sleep late...).

If you don't win, fear not. For just £42 (that's around US$67), you could join us on an 8 week playful journey to the island of Inspiration, on the trail of Technique with the excitement of Experimentation! We will be making art, writing magical prose and generally having a picnic of a time.

(Forgive the shameless plug... I'm just excited to be doing this at last and am a gregarious soul, so would love lots more people to join those already signed up!).

Hmm.... What can they be?

Sharing for Paint Party Friday.

PS - Just realised I published this in the wrong blog - meant to put it in my usual one... Oh well... never mind!

Group Working

I was given the book we're using for the book group - Mess: A Manual of Accidents and Mistakes - last autumn. It was a prize from another course. I was so excited when it arrived, having enjoyed a whale of a time with one of Keri's other destruction projects - Wreck this Journal. Somehow though, I just couldn't get into it. I put some attempt into a few pages, but something was missing...

Clarity finally dawned - making a mess is never as much fun on your own as with a group... especially when you need some encouragement and permission to start to let go. The Messy Book Group was born!

The last few weeks my messy band have been making tentative steps towards total abandon. Many of us are taking a leap into unknown territory. We're finding a side to our creativity we never knew existed or had packed away along with childhood toys.

 Mess or the place where the Dragon shed its skin?

Already some of us have been labelled as the local eccentrics as we leap about in mud and then dance over our artwork. Family members have questioned our sanity or written letters to The Times in distress over our wanton destruction of the bound page.

Yet, in amongst the mess, we are finding tiny treasures ready to seed and bloom into something altogether special. We are opening our minds and muses to possibility. As we enjoy the very act of creation with little heed to any final outcome we are more often than not surprising ourselves along the way.

The right sides of our brains are wide awake and laughing with glee as they connect the dots, splodges and sticky patches to find new meaning. It's a crazy adventure and we're enjoying the ride!

Finding the composition after the fact!

It is never too late to join the party. We're sharing our accidents and improvisation on the **FREE** Book Group blog page and throwing ideas and caution to the wind in our Facebook Group.

If you're wondering how this fits with the eCourse or indeed, just what that's all about. Well, it will more of the same with a dose of more prescribed material. We'll be learning where to find inspiration and stretching our right brains. We'll be telling stories in words and pictures and finding new meaning in the mundane. We'll look at the work of other artists and see how they can inspire us to take our own creative path.

It all starts on Monday 14th May. The clock is ticking... Tick Tock... Sign up here.

The Guarantee

…If after the first half of the course, you don’t feel inspired to create, then I will offer your money back, no quibble.

A messy book group

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Three summers ago I joined a group that helped change my life. I  know that sounds a bit far fetched - and you'll be even more dubious when I tell you what the book was - but it's the truth. It awoke something inside me that had been lying dormant for a very long time.

The book was Wreck This Journal: To Create is to Destroy by Keri Smith and the group was run by coach Jamie of Jamie Ridler Studios. Over the summer of 2009 around 40 of us destroyed our journals in the most creative ways imaginable and underwent a transformation. Suddenly we realised that art did not have to be about carefully positioned paint or strategically structured design. Art could be the messy stain left over after you squashed your spaghetti between the pages of the book. Art was words, dirt, stickers, fluff. Creativity was burning, cutting, smearing. Supplies were everywhere - from the long forgotten impulse buys from the craft shop to flora and fauna or even your own hair picked up off the floor of the salon!

We mixed in some guts and a whole heap of fun and just let go. Our Muses were given free rein and they loved it! We shared our wrecking each week on Jamie's blog and inspired each other to be more revolutionary, daring and downright dastardly to our books.

Our friends and families, at first bemused, began to join in too. By the end of our adventure we each held something really special. I for one, was truly inspired. I knew that from that day forward, my house would never again be tidy and nor would I ever be far from a tube of paint. Magic had happened!

• Does that sound good to you?
• Do you fancy quite literally letting rip?
• Want your creativity to be let loose to have a mash up with your Muse?

Well, let's do it! Join me for a couple of months of messy play with another of Keri's books Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes . Every week we can return here and share our creative adventures, inspiring each other onto more daring devilment with every page.

Are you in?

Sign up below. All you need to play is your imagination, somewhere to post your week's mess and plenty of wild, crazy abandon! Let's start sharing our first forays into letting loose on Friday 6th April - I'll create us a separate blog so we can keep all posts together, but you'll find the link to it here. I'll make us a badge too - but do spread the word Tweet: Join the Wright Brainers for a Messy Book Club

Register your interest here

Buy your copy

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