For more of Lesson 4 in Raw Art Journalling, I chose to write and frame a haiku. The words represent my feelings very succinctly – I surprised myself with this one! And the doodling is fun because it makes me practise something I am not good at!!
NB: I had decided previously that I wasn’t going to make haiku art as I already Haiku my Heart (almost) every Friday, but the words came, so I went with the flow… The other words for the one-word journalling were far “artier”, but I think they are equally valid and “of the moment”!
This is the first time I have taken a workshop and been unconcerned about keeping up, having a deadline or making “art”… With Quinn’s class, I am starting to understand that it’s more about “making meaning” – and what that signifies. I think I am growing. Cool, huh?! 😉
I’m taking Quinn MacDonald’s Raw Art Journalling Class and discovering strange things about me, myself and I! Hopefully I am not turning into a stalker, but I have been visiting Quinn’s blog (and a couple of others) very regularly lately. For instance, yesterday I linked to the paper-weaving tutorial Quinn had posted.
Maybe I have been a bit cynical, but I never realised how cool the simple acts can be… I cut up 2 backgrounds I had made – one from the last time I was carving erasers, so on thin foolscap paper; the other was a Fabriano watercolour card that had printed out wrong and thus been used in an experiment with 3D paint -writing (don’t ask!). So, different texture and weights of papers became this:
I didn’t think it’d work at first as the colours are a bit similar, but I swapped them around a bit and taped down the heavier watercolour strips first. They aren’t even, although I did cut them out with scissors, I just didn’t do it too precisely! I then took strips of the lighter-weight paper and wove them through the downward strips.
Of course, having discovered that I have a control-freak gremlin – came as a bit of a shock, actually – I couldn’t just be happy with the weaving, no! I got the black and white pens out and started to doodle… But, I think the weaving is now much better and more appropriate for inclusion in (one of) my art journal(s)!
In my jobs and in my home, I know that I am a bit of a perfectionist. I may not be “Mrs. Tidy”, but I am clean, and fairly well organised; I do tend to be a bit impatient – hate waiting for ‘other people’ to do stuff, when I know that secretly I could do it faster/better myself… so I guess I do have gremlins after all. 😉
Following my BBF Barbara’s advice, I spent some time cutting up collage sheets from Summer Camp yesterday (yes, resting the foot!), and on the doll sheet was a row of Babushkas. That of course reminded me of that iconic Kate Bush song, and the page was created for Take a Word.
I haven’t put a collage together with paper and glue, for a while, so I turned to my big art journal with the funky backgrounds in (yellow and pink food dyes – what was I thinking???) and decided to incorporate those shapes into the collage. It became a riotous explosion of colours and doodling, but I did also write the following:
“Babooshkas hide lots of secrets of ever-decreasing sizes, from big, dramatic, show-stopping, terrible, skeleton-in-the-closet ones, to small, silly ones. But they can also hold treasures.”
When I had pretty much finished doodling, I was struck by the fact that the babushkas only had one arm… so I wrote –
“All these babooshkas look like one-armed bandits…”
The cutting out of all the elements was therapeutic indeed, Barbara. Whether it’ll improve my drawing or not, I can’t be sure, but hope springs eternal! There are no rubber stamps at all on the page, it’s all slow, painstaking little doodles with black and white markers – plus the yummy orange and purple Sharpies.
Another interesting discovery I made is that although the food dyes disappear from fabric, they remained steadfast on the paper, despite the coloured markers (some of which are non-permanent), I used over them. I’ll have to try watercolours with them and see what happens – the water may dilute them, it may not. Watch this space!! 😉
Can you put your hands in your head? Oh no… Remember Roger Hodgson – Supertramp? Dreamer was his first hit song and probably why I became a fan. I have never ever forgotten the song or the lyrics, or his amazing voice. Luckily, there’s a fairly reasonable video on Youtube that you can watch:
I post this because I have had another weird week (and it’s only Wednesday!). I don’t know if there’s something in the air or a bug going round, but I am exhausted. I have been working on this Project Denim – maybe that has drained me more than I thought, because I don’t normally work in one medium for a prolonged length of time. Could my creative battery cells need recharging? Whatever…
Today I found myself yet again in a waiting area, with pencils and the old Moon Diary from 2007. I had the notion that I’d practice doodling – like “real” doodling, as in zentangles. I’ve tangled before and I refreshed my eyes with a few tangles hoping they’d inspire me. Disappointingly, this is all that happened:
Hmmm, apart from the 2nd section – the “ribbons” – I’m not keen on any of those! When I showed my friend what I’d written round the edges, she said that was better than the doodling! I wrote:
“This is why I have trouble with zentangles. I can’t seem to follow a repetitive pattern. Does this mean I have a very disorganised mind or I am merely undisciplined? Perhaps I should try mandalas…”
But, I doodled a bit more on the following page and Nefertiti-Cupcake (/Jellymould) was born, mainly through my inability to draw hair (and maybe ears too!):
Now she’s simply a pencil sketch, but I like her! Then I decided to try a mandala. I vaguely remember that you start in the centre and work outwards. I don’t really know what I’m doing and I was getting grumpy by now, (45 minutes after the DD had gone to sit her exam), so maybe that explains the pointy/spikey bits!
However, I think the outer circle looks very much like people (possibly young ones), holding hands in a circle, so maybe I had mellowed by then. I did enjoy that one more than the doodles, so perhaps I should take more notice of my BBFF Barbara and get stuck into mandalas… 😉
Thanks so much to GLENDA for hosting this prompt!
The Prompt: Faith
The Song: Heaven help me by Gretchen Wilson
Product/Technique: Wings
I have rambled a bit and was trying a new technique to create this page – journalling in the journalled word… if that makes sense? It’s a “summer camp” thing! I’m trying to describe how I feel about Faith…
I must explain that this is a handmade watercolour papers, art journal. I made the journal on the Supernova AJ Class with Julie Prichard in 2009. It has pages bound to tapes which are stitched into a fabric cover… I know, right? It is a really lovely AJ. However, I don’t like the papers much although they take media very well. They’re just hard to collage onto and write on.
When I took Kelly Kilmer’s Memories and Reflections class, a lot of emphasis was on page layout and composition for collage. I used Kelly’s templates with paint in this journal, instead of paper. The paints are a little bright/loud but the concept is good… So I have 5 or 6 layouts painted up in the journal, onto which I can collage, doodle, journal, etc.
The text-tape is something I picked up from Julie FFB recently!! Very quick and very cool – oh and really cheap! 😉
The other day I didn’t want to put boots on because it was a sunny and fairly warm day, but my trainers are plain white with a few touches of pink. (yuck!) I’m not very “girly” and I thought the trainers were so boring, that I decided to be very brave and… colour them myself!!!!!!!!!
Not so pink now, eh?!
And so they are better now… but what to do about those laces? Should I colour them? Purple or blue? They do look better I think and all it took was a few permanent markers and a black ballpoint pen. 😉
Joking apart, now that myscanner has stopped behaving like a spoilt brat, here’s an ATC for Theme Thursday’s “black and white” challenge…
Or Salon Kitty? Fun themed ATCs this week at TMTA. House-shaped they must be!
I love using old ATC backgrounds and turning them into something completely different! This particular ATC “blank” has been altered 3 times now, this time with handcarved stamps, Hello Kitty stickers and watersoluble pencils. (Plus a bit of judicious doodling!)
Anyone who knew that song by Paul Young and followed the lyrics, knew it was about the transigence of relationships, love (or lust) at first sight, and a guy who can’t commit. My journal page avoids most of those issues, but the first lines –
“By the look in your eyes, I can tell you’re gonna cry
Is it over me?… If it is, save your tears,
‘cos I’m not worth it, you see…”
They make me sad and when I used a black and white photocopy of Blue and the Jesterbird and placed them here on this page, the lyrics sprang into my head immediately. My page isn’t about love, lust or men. My page is about hurt and pain and songs that mean something to me. I didn’t want to write all over the page because I can’t share all that (yet!) Still, it has been cathartic even admitting that much…
I was very much struck by what Rachel (A year in the life of an art journal) says here – see #3. She says: “In an art journal, actually WRITING anything is totally optional.”
So I shall let my pictures do my talking for now! I am sending this to Ms. Penny Lane of Songs in my Heart. She may use it, she may not, but do have a look at the lovely artwork over there…
More journalling in pencil on the opposite page to yesterday’s. This is where I answer the questions (aka prompts) from Sharon. To create the page, I simply pasted the printed out questions, then painted the background in varying shades of green – green and purple are the Feng Shui colours of abundance, so I am using them in this exercise…
What 5 things...?
I confess to finding great beauty and serenity in the colour green. It’s the colour of growth, renewal, new shoots and there are so many varieties of greens, I could probably use it for a complete canvas! I wrote in pencil again and I have used some beautiful stamps – Diva Impressions top right is one of my faves. The rest are either by Personal Impressions (butterfly), Cherry Pie or Home Impressions. The doodling is a white Signo gel pen and a darker green triplus fineliner from a set by Staedtler. Love my pens!!
Beautiful is the theme for Take a Word this week. See everyone’s entries on the blog.
**** NB: I just wanted to add a link HERE to Neil Pasricha’s talk on TED.com, which is funny and inspirational. I thoroughly recommend you sit and listen to his talk for the 17 minutes duration – I am sure, like me, that you’ll end up with a smile on your face! 😉
It’s really part of day 4 but I am trying to spread these out a bit as some days I have less time and no time at all! That’s life, innit? So here’s another question answered…
"Discover"
The tag is recycled from a T-shirt we bought for DH! Sometimes these “No Fear” labels and tags make the difference between saying yes or no to buying the Tee!! I know that sounds silly, but, there was a time when that applied, honestly!!
So here, “Love is…” = “No Fear”. The tag and stamps say it all, don’t they? 🙂
Altered Art & Stuff... 