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?

Opening the door...

Rotten Apples

I hate this page. Nothing works, the colors are horrible and everything I did to save it just made it worse. Nevertheless here I am displaying it, if anything for the simple point that art is a process and sometimes you make really crappy art. I salute you, horrible page. You've shown me what not to do the next time around.







For the last few days, I've been in a very "paint splatter, makes no sense, what is going on here?" type of mood. What's pretty cool is that the pink// sky blue one got a note from Linda Woods. If you don't know who she is, she is the author of two books that I just love, "Visual Chronicles" and "Journal Revolution" (which is the book I bought for my father to get him on the journaling band wagon.) While my mantra has been that I am doing this for me and that I share because I enjoy doing so, it is nice to have someone whose written a book on the matter give you a thumbs up.

PROJECTS!!

I have a few projects in he works that I hope will just help me with my goal of being creative on a consistent basis this year. One of the things I'm going to do is create a mini studio in my basement. I have a walk-out basement with a huge amount of space that I really do not use. I'm going to create a work space/studio for myself there. I'll be working on saving my money to create it (No CREDIT!) and hopefully having that space all to myself will help me set time for myself.

The other thing I have going on is creating a pretty room for my daughter. She's asthmatic and isn't allowed to have things like mosquito netting, drapes, etc... in her room to reduce the amount of allergens she is exposed to.




So, we're going to create a special place for her so that she feels she is getting her "girlie" room without compromising her health. Part of this is creating a series of mixed media paintings on a little mouse girl that I've drawn and she seems to love. I'm sketching out ideas in my journal and perhaps when we finally move into our own home, I will be able to make one of those paintings a mural on one of her walls.





So much to look forward too, I can't help but be excited.

Art/Journal Prompt.

I like the various prompts out there. So many talented people just inspiring one another and that, is encouraging. Sometimes though, I would like to inspire myself and so I create my own moment of thought that pulses, blinks and scatters out into the expansive cosmos or whatever it is you wish to call it.

nolens volens \NO-lenz-VO-lenz\:
Whether unwilling or willing.


I like this saying. It's Latin and that alone makes it cool. (Ever notice that everything sounds more grandiose in Latin? No? Give it a try.)


So, where was I? Oh yes, Nolens Volens. What makes an artistic soul? Is it the steadiness of their line or the smoothness of their curve? Is it their value of color or their ability to render beauty in black and white? Does the artistic soul rise above in surrealistic splendor or instead, does it explode in a brilliant kaleidescope of impressionistic light?

In the end the word Nolens Volens describes it best. The artistic soul is driven to create, to express to visually expound whether willingly or unwillingly and no amount of previous talent or skill can derail the drive to do so.

So I learn to create, regardless of quality or quantity because I can and most importantly because I must.


*Feel free to leave your own thoughts in comments or trackbacks.*