process

a page in my journal - 4 steps during the process i made myself stop and scan so i could show the gutts of this page. i like each one on its own, but it's my personal thing. as i become more confident with every page in my journal, i become more confident in the process of each page as well. it's where i get lost in the lines, becoming more absorbed with each detail and color. i have no preconceived ideas as i draw my first line, and i watch each piece unfold like a movie...
here is more of my current art journal: MY ART JOURNAL

blossoms & borscht

springtime is a time of proliferate blooming here in atlanta. my 5 year-old son happily partnered with me to find the most incredible examples of our favorite blooms. hydrangeas might be my favorite flowering bush. my grandmother loved them. my favorite are the blue and purple, of course...i adore how they change shades during their bloom...

cherries are so pretty because of their dark branches, so i took a shot from below.  this one has an "E" in it, and has pushed me to attempt a very floral alphabet...perhaps an exemplar to submit to Somerset Studio :)

wisteria was at the top of my list...the purple and lavender colors and the draping of the strongly-scented flowers is so romantic and graceful, especially since this is considered an invasive species down here, and i could only find ones in overgrown empty lots!

easter is borscht time in my family. (beet and cabbage soup). i make mine extra chunkier every year - i LOVE beets. as i peeled them and cut up my red cabbage, i had to stop and photograph the beauty of the patterns and colors of these delicious veggies.

how my journaling started

i used to write endlessly in my personal journals. i was born with a LOVE for the physical act of writing, and kept many diaries and keepsake journals. but the matters i wrote about in my young adult years were things that bothered me, so i was actually giving permission to my brain to continue obssessing. yes, i unwaveringly believe that this process is cathartic and useful, and that writing out thoughts can dismiss them from your mind, but i also found that i kept returning to my journals for affirmation that i had reasons to be crazy. by rereading entries, i opened old crap for re-examination, which eventually made the thought processes spin further out of control.

i continued writing for years, sometimes pages filled with small longhand, other times a few disjointed words scrawled, painted or carved into the paper, but really very few drawings of any kind. the written word was seemingly more understandable to my imaginary readers? my only "art" was done separately from my journals, for classes mostly...

at the time i was most prolific with written journals, i was the most ill. i didn't care that my rantings were very unpleasant and disturbing to others. i was still new to my braincrap (as it presented during these years), and i was unsure of what to make of it.  i was scared, suicidal and in moments of lucidity, embarassed. this dark period (that sounds so artistic) overlapped with my bachelor's studies in art therapy and psychology. at one point my art therapy professor (thank you, M) expressed concern over my art therapy class journal and projects. he insisted i find a therapist, and i did.

and the excrutiatingly slow process of mental rehab (through self-imposed art therapy) begins...

starting the year by finishing

i need to get back in gear, so i decided to pull out and finish a bunch of ACEOs (my individual mini-journal pages) i started last year. i am completely guilty of not finishing anything, but it felt good to add something to pieces i already started. i have a bunch more, including a lot of "windows" i've drawn that are empty, that i'll post as i fill them.

 

 set of 3 cards. i want to do more collage, as i have amassed quite a collection of awesomely-illustrated, unwanted vintage books to disassemble.

 

i still have a thing about using the "best" of my collage items, and am working on creating little "masterpieces" out of what i think should be showcased. this shrew wasn't a favorite of mine, it was a practice run...i think he pulled it off.... 

these are the type of "window" pieces i have a lot of...

i love using real up against cartoon.

this ended up creeping me out- so i call him "odd bird".

ACEO summer style...

these, like my postcards, were TV-watching time passers. there is a little bit more descrip on my flickr.

 

postcard play

this is my podplanet. i have been finding inspiration on flickr from hundreds of searches for different new and old interests in biology, ocean creatures, geology and abstract landscapes. i am so magnetically attracted to mini living worlds, worlds inside of worlds (like cells) and the prospect of worlds beyond our own. so what is this?  i dunno. you can assign it a meaning of your own.

i searched a long list of urchins and jellyfish and decided to create my own new species... 

...another swirl theme with scales and roses...i like that i didn't let myself color the whole thing in - i scanned it and just added one color. well, a few variations of one color.

 

for some reason this one didn't have the - i guess i don't like the oranges so much. the blue "netting" layer reminds me of the white mushrooms that make themselves those hol-y umbrellas. i love love love mushrooms and their detailed undersides, and the tiny worlds they create on moss and lichen-covered branches and forest floors...

peace board

 

 if you came to my blog from my flickr, sorry for the repetition...this book board was saved from my book disassemblings...which i stopped because i finally urged my OCD self to just look for collage materials as i go along, instead of trying to catalog everything. the book board idea is from several collage artists i found online who use them as bases for collages. great idea, because they are dry and absorb glue really well. for marker drawing - not so great, i realized 2 seconds into my drawing. so i had to use colored pencils. i have been loving the intesity of my sharpies and bics when i draw on smooth bristol, so i wasn't happy that i had to have a softer look.  after my daughter suggested the pencils might actually work better on a peace drawing because of the muted-ness of the color, i carried on.  it took a lot longer than my marker work, but i do like how it came out.

 

 i scanned this in B&W before i took-on the coloring, in case it didn't turn out well.

then i thought about making pages to sell as color-yourself prints. dover publishing sells a lot of detail coloring books...i love them.

 as you can see from my photos here, i had to pr - ok - well, i didn't HAVE to, but i chose to press very hard to achieve solid color. i have a thing for crinkly paper and permanence, so i always press very hard when i write.  does anyone else miss the smell of papermate ink on a freshly written assignment? i was one of those kids who wouldn't use a crayon lightly, all of my colored pages were heavily filled. i try sometimes to abandon that urge, in fact i started another journal and the first page is softly drawn.  i will post it later.

all in all, i have a goal to try and grow larger drawings. i have been asked to trade and sell something like an 8x10 size, so i am working toward that.  this fulfills that goal, i might try to print it to see how the colors come through.

 

 

 

i am really happy with the three above, somehow they worked better than i thought. i got some new blick markers from my best friend in ohio!!  (thanks, missy).  she picked some lighter colors, so i'm excited to use those to do something new or at least a little different. we'll see how that might work with some vintage or magazine images thrown in...

here are three ACEOs i used a bit of collage in:

the eye from a catalog, the two heads from a vintage encyclopedia.

 

 

...and some magic. think i'll stick to the collage thing...

 

i have failed to open my ETSY store on my birthday, may 4th.

i had a description put in, and i went to add my photos, but they were TOOBIG!

so, back to photoshop to chop.

starting to wonder if it's not worth it for the few dollars i'll make?

i have, however, started a FACEBOOK PAGE for art and art friends form flickr, blogs, etc. i hope to make that a place to discuss process and product and maybe turn this blog into a place for discussing and sharing depression and other mental health issues as it pertains to art. or the other way around. either direction, i completely believe in and depend on art as therapy, and want to share that with others who do the same or who didn't think about art as a healing process. there are 198765 things going on in our life right now, so working on this is helpful but will be slow going...i am keeping up with my flickr the most, since i am getting into the networking thing