Journal Page 18

jp 18 -Pink
sketch on a tea & kool-aid dyed page.
The pink is the koolaid.
I couldn't decide if that was enough pink.
But I didn't want to ruin the feel of the original, so photoshop it was, and the endless variations it brings. It helps if I am planning a painting to mess around with it a little while to see if anything really moves me.
The pink blot in the middle looks like a butterfly to me.

Journal Pages 16 & 17 (red and yellow)

Journal page 16
Red
How to Be Authentic: Do what makes you happy. NO MATTER WHAT
joy+love+art.
This should be my mantra for the rest of the year.
With art making, doing what makes me happy, no matter what, is the key to being authentic. To being myself. I worry worry worry about what other people are doing and making, and I worry about staying current, about keeping about. Worry worry worry. Will someone like it, will anybody care?
Worry.

This is not the road I wanted to take, It is not healthy, its not ME. So I am going to write it down as many times as I need to. Do what makes me happy, no matter what.
Even if I'm scribbling with chalk on the sidewalk. ESPECIALLY if I am scribbling with chalk on the sidewalk.
Mermaids and faeries and little girls with big eyes and big lips and crazy hair and colorscolorscolors.
No matter what.

Journal Page 17
Yellow
It started out a lot more yellow than this. But yellow is a bit of challenge for me.
I really wanted to play around more with all the textures and brushes and dover images I have.
I was trying for soft, feminine, and grunge-y all at the same time.
I like it, I don't like it. I don't know.
Maybe if I incorporate more of my own imagery.
It was a learning experience so I'm not going to judge it.

Journal Page 15

Journal Page 15 white
I have a lot of trouble leaving things be. Especially if those things are entirely white spaces. I had decided ahead of time to use a lot of texture and layers to achieve the white on white look I wanted... then I cheated and used pink and blue, but added a couple of white layers over the top. I thought I would be done with it a lot sooner than I was but it needed a lot of drying time.
I started making a list of things I wanted to experiment with on my journal pages, and then I realized its already the 16th.
I can't believe how far into January we are already.
I'm moving into a new house at the end of the month. I'm having a baby sometime in May (Or maybe April if he wants to come early.)
They say the older you get the faster time moves for you.
I think I understand that now.

Orange and Green Jp 13&14

Journal page 13
Orange
Which to me is all about fears.


Journal Page 14
Green
Mermaids. I used to love drawing mermaids.

Journal Page 11 &12

Here is Journal Page 11 from Sunday.
The top half of the image was done by hand, and then the bottom half I tried to duplicate the idea of it digitally.


Sunday was a visiting-the-family-day. We packed up the car with gifts, and drove two hours south to see everyone. I have four sisters, so there was a lot of talking and eating and excitement... and gift-giving. Monday was a visiting-the-family-hang over day. I did manage to get to the art store and buy some much needed new paint brushes and two very large canvases which I can't wait to paint on.


Journal Page 12:

I almost missed the memo that this was a color-a-day themed week. But it turns out I was doing a blue page for Monday anyway. Which I ended up finishing digitally because I didn't want to ruin my ultrasound photos.

I have about a million and a two fonts on my computer. I find them, I love them, I never use them. The same goes with photoshop brushes and textures and all of that. It was nice to use materials that I didn't have to pay for ^_^ Now if only I could get the hang of all this digital stuff. I see all the goodies on my computer then I forget about things like composition.

Journal Page 9

Journal Page 9: Nest, revisited
I was messing with proportion, atmosphere, and color on this page. Also, I used the acrylics a bit like watercolors. I really like the over all wintery feeling and color scheme, but I don't feel like I really nailed the forced proportion. (But that tiny nest is cute)

Journal Page 8

Journal Page 8 ; Nest
This girl has followed me around for almost a year now. A lot of times images get stuck in my head, like this one, the girl with her nest in the forest. She has been created in varying styles and medium from canvas painting to a simple doodle in my sketchbook.. After creating and recreating this image so much, I'm starting to think she is a bit of a self-portrait. The more I look at her, the more I think she is pregnant, and the entire image is about pregnancy. (She's been with me since before I was pregnant, which makes the realization a bit more profound, and mystifying... ) Is that crazy? Does your body know more about you than you do? I don't know, it all sounds a little crazy to me. But sometimes that is what this whole art-making thing is for me... I'm just telling myself stories, I'm just working out things I didn't quite realize before I made the piece. Maybe I haven't gotten her right yet and so she sticks around.
On a different note - I really enjoyed gluing all those strips of book pages down. I've always wanted to incorporate a bit of collage into my work (but it seems like its a bit of what everyone is doing right now.) I'm still working everyday, trying to find my voice.

Journal Page 7

Journal Page 7 : I was thinking about points of view, and how most people only see parts of who you are and what you are all about. Sometimes it has to do with how you present yourself, and sometimes it is how someone wants to view you. Its a lot harder to change the perception of the latter.

I think maybe if I were to chose a theme for 2009 I would choose, "Letting Go." There are a lot of other things that go through my mind lately but I think they run along the same theme, acceptance, giving, letting go.

More on this later. Definitely.

Journal Page 6

Journal Page 6
Acrylics and colored pencil.

I was thinking a lot about where I have come as an artist. I paid quite a bit of money (am still paying quite a bit of money) to go to art school. I left after a year quite disillusioned with the entire thing. All of my classes were drawing classes so I've been teaching myself to paint since then. It has taken me literally years to get to the point where I am now with watercolors and acrylics, I'm not even going to think about oils.
Sometimes I think I should have tried to stay in college, but I know that I would have been unhappy. I really want to go back to school again, but for different reasons now.

Journal Page 5

Journal Page 5:
I was doodling with some colored pencils and this is what happened. I should doodle more. I left a bit at the bottom to write out my thoughts.. hurray for painters markers.

Journal Page 4

Journal Page Four. I started out doodling all over the paper and journalled random thoughts and song lyrics over the last few days. I painted over a lot of my writing, because I like the look of it hiding just below the surface. I had a couple butterfly images printed out from Dover, so I glued those on in places... Then I found my Elmer's Painters markers, which are opaque and write over a lot of surfaces without a problem. I started doodling some more and the butterfly mandadla just sort of emerged. I really like the idea of it, so I might end up painting a nicer, cleaner version.

I started to paint and draw a couple of pages ahead, so that when I feel like it I can journal, instead of trying to plan out a time to sit and make something. It is a lot less perfect, but I like the spontaneity of it all, and sometimes the images just come together.

Journal page 3

I started out painting swirls in black, just to loosen up. Then in an hour and a half I had painted this.
I used a bit of photographic reference for the face.
Sometimes I amaze (and worry) myself; I had not meant for the painting to turn out this realistic, or this nice. It is on bond paper in my art journal/sketchbook. Maybe I should try to paint everything in my sketchbook, then it will all come out awesome ^_^

Journal Pages! January 1st and 2nd

January 1st: Yes! Layers and Layers and layers and layers. I painted, then painted, then painted some more... I glued a bunch of magazine photos down, painted again, then I wrote a bit, then I painted again.
It was fun, a bit of jump-starting my brain on this one. I think the next couple I do will incorporate the magazine collage and painting. I don't over-think so much, I just sort of automatically glue things down. It was fun, and liberating, and everything that I wanted this journaling experience to be.




January 2nd: Fly Away. More layers of collage and paint. I took the idea further and attempted to create a little girl with cut outs. It feels a little Alice in Wonderland-y. Her hair was the most fun.


These pieces came out a bit darker than I thought they would, but I'm okay with that. It is all about the process for me, right now, the experimentation and the mess.