Ageless

March is almost upon us, which means that my birthday is coming up. 33. It seems like a blink of an eye and I'm past twenties and diving into my thirties. Do I feel different? With the occasional gray hair and perhaps an ache or pain that wasn't there before, no, not really. My mind still races as if I were 19 and in love with the world at times. When I look around, it seems like people think it is wrong to be how I am, that I should, "grow up."

I work, I help support my family, I cook, clean do laundry ... so why can't I dream? Aging is an evil trick of the body that the mind cannot comprehend. It still thinks it has eternity to be.

Dream Friends

This morning I decided to make myself a peppermint stick milkshake. Shhhhh, don't tell my kids.

Psuedo rule makers and art snobs

Those who can do. Those who can't criticize.
Suzi Blu: Art Journal Playshop With Suzi Blu: Rubber Stamp Letters

So, yesterday on youtube I just happen to follow a link to a person who professes to be sick of copy cat artists who follow pseudo gurus and I couldn't help but shake my head.

The comment was made in relation to Suziblu, whom if you have not seen one of her youtube videos is this woman trying to make it as a working artist and creates videos where she encourages people to create art/visual journals and helps them by giving them prompts and how-to's. She has grown quite popular in youtube land with her introduction to art journals garnering over 60,000 views.

So, what has this woman and the people who enjoy her videos done to deserve being labeled as copycats and pseudo guru's? Share their enthusiasm and positivity? Begin their own journey in the world of personal art for art's sake? Copy a few pointers as a starting point to discover their own style?


I find that people who feel like they need to define and coat things in a negative context are usually upset that someone blew up their spot. Did this woman claim that she created the concept of an art journal? No. Does she sit there and point fingers at other's and call them copycats? No. So what is it? What could possibly cause someone to get so upset over a person who put their feelings out there and in return received a lot of positive feedback?

Perhaps it is the fact that someone is being followed and recognized because they dared to put themselves out there and they were rewarded with a connection. Perhaps in the back of their mind they are saying to themselves, "Not fair! Why does she get the accolades, she's done nothing special, hasn't invented something new. Why is she getting the credit for it?" When what they really mean is, "That could be me, I can't believe I didn't think of it first, second or last. I can't believe I didn't do something, anything and in the end got rewarded with nothing."

Now it could be that this person really has no desire to do these things but if that is the case, then why rain on someone's parade? I just don't get the whole, You're not "legitimate" if you don't fit into the parameters of my own self-imposed rule book.

What is the purpose of my long windless rant? I guess that life is too short. If you're so "fed up" that certain people have adopted a style or laud a person for turning them on to something new, then here is a thought, ignore it and do what you like. Getting angry of things of little importance is like waiting for the start gun to go off in order to live your life. In the end it's a waste of time that could have been better spent doing something that makes you happy.

Inspiration

I got the most wonderful e-mail about a week ago from someone who viewed one of my youtube videos. It's nice to see that people are inspired by what I do and perhaps it encourages them to do it themselves. I cannot express enough how important it is to understand that there are things you do for yourself, not an audience and visual journaling is one of them. Pick up a pencil, pen, crayon, marker and just do something. One drawing leads to another, leads to a collage, leads to acrylic paints, leads to canvas and before you know it, you're wondering how in the world did you not express yourself artistically.

Here is a new journal page with a, "how I did it," youtube video to accompany it. I'm in the process of brainstorming a few other videos with the intention of encouraging others to journal. Well see how that pans out but until then, enjoy and please let me know what you think. I appreciate it all of your comments!

New Pages

Make ART!

Created this in response to Cheekychen's call to arms on youtube. Amazingly enough, with all the artists submitting videos of their artwork, there is no "Art" category on youtube. He's hoping to change that. View the short, short video below.

Love, Love, LOVE!

Holy cow, red and pink everywhere.

New pages

I'm telling you, this journal is inspiration gold. AHH

*hangs head in shame*

I've been ignoring you, little blog and I apologize! My fingers have been busy creating art, working on new journals and etc, etc, etc...

I have so much to share, so if you're tuning in, I suggest you go do a load of laundry and come back so you give your browser time to download all the images. All set? Great! And away we go!

I decided to try out some new techniques. There is a young lady on the net who goes by the name of ink_smear. She has these lovely melancholic journal pages that I just love. Unfortunately, I cannot be melancholic to save my life. I'm not sure why but my angst ends up being too bright and colorful to be anything more than a passing whine on the, "get over it" train. Nonetheless here is my attempt. I was feeling pretty blah that day.




See what I mean? GREEN not any green mind you, oh know, bright spring green! *sighs* I give up, I'm going back to my happy little world.

Anyway, in that fiasco, I ended up messing up some of my moleskien pages and they fell out. Well, I just taped that sucker back up with some packing tape and we were back to new.



Link to YouTube Video

Taking a break from the journal, I decided to make an attempt at using my own photography in my artwork. I have more pictures than I know what to do with and I was sure I would be able to find some use for the ones that don't make it to the album.

Again, experimenting and while I semi-like the results, I still found it too piecey. Need to find some cohesiveness in my work.

So, I decided I needed a larger canvas to journal on and went to borders where I found some amazing "scrapbook" journals by their Paperchase line. The paper is what I like to call, "paper bag brown" and are thick making them perfect for visual journaling. I've been so inspired by the size and look of the journal that I have been on a journaling spree since the 2nd. Here are all the pages up till now: (click on the thumbnail to see the larger image)





Whew! That will teach me to procrastinate posting again!

I couldn't draw a stick figure

Ha, proved myself wrong, didn't I?