Begin Again

Well, as you can possibly tell, I did not get to all the KIOS blog-a-thon posts.  I'm calling it a half marathon, as I did get to day 16.  So that's something, right?  Now I am gracefully bowing out and lying down at the side of the track while someone pours Gatorade down my throat because I need the electrolytes...  

But just because I've been a lazy blogger doesn't mean I've been a lazy artist...I have been a busy bee in that area indeed.  I've been piecing things together a little at a time, working on a lot of different things at once, but  I do have two things (TWO THINGS!!!) finished and ready to show you today.

In a moment of insane boredom...coupled with the fact that I needed a new bill calendar for 2014 and the fact that I REALLY did not want to go to the store...I decided to upcycle an old calendar I had on hand and made this:

Goodbye boring blank cover.  Hello pretty girl face cover!

I'm so stinking happy with the way her face turned out!  Doesn't she look all fresh and innocent and ready to face a new day and a new life?  *squeal of delight*  Wow, how much do I wish my face could look like that!?! ...and that my attitude could support that face!  My attitude wants me to go back to bed and sleep for a few days...and my face has pillow wrinkles on it and eyes glazed over with the mild confusion of someone who just woke up...hehehe...  But in my dream world, this girl's face is my face, and my attitude is looking forward to good things!  Slowly, I am making that happen, but it seems like I'm taking my sweet time getting there.  Can't I just have inner peace now?  Ugh! :)

Inside page of new (old) calendar

I cut out A BUNCH of scrapbook paper squares and glued them down on the old pages...then the decided not to stick (probably because I was impatiently trying to work on all the pages at once instead of letting one page dry and then going on to the next), so I covered them over with a gesso wash to make them stick together.  That worked, but, in the end, I could have saved time by being patient and waiting for the current page to dry before doing the next page.  I have learned my lesson for next time...probably...

Depending on laziness level, I may actually have a do-over bill calendar.  As you can see in the top picture (at the edges of the calendar), this book is a little disheveled.  The pages kept trying to fall out, so I had to tape them together, and now the book is really thick and I just don't know if I'm happy with it as a calendar.  But don't fear, if I do end up making another, the one I showed you today will end up being an art journal, so it won't be wasted!  I like that cover girl WAY too much to toss her in the trash can!

Ooh!  Before I forget, I got a really nice thank you card from Jen (you can check out her blog HERE), who was my buddy I sent a care package to for the KIOS swap.  She sent such an AWESOME thank you package...now I feel like a wiener that I didn't send a thank you to Sara, who sent me my care package that had an inspiring collage and some beautiful origami paper cranes (which caused me to have insane jealousy, because her folds were so PERFECT!)!

Here's what Jen sent:

Such a nice surprise!  I can't tell you how much I love the art card at the bottom right...that image makes me SQUEAL WITH DELIGHT!!!  AAAH...LOVE IT!!!  

Thank you for the lovely thank you, Jen! <3

In other news, I started reading The Sound of Paper (now known as SoP for the purposes of not having to click the underline button...)by Julia Cameron (the author of The Artist's Way).  My sister gave me this book a LONG time ago, and I started reading it and doing the exercises in it...then got distracted by shiny things (as is my tendency) and never finished.  (On a side note, I am really good at getting to the half-way point and then walking away...semi guilt-free.)  

If you are familiar with Julia Cameron, you know about morning pages, which are three hand-written pages a day about whatever you feel like writing about (in case you aren't familiar with them).  I guess to get the creative juices flowing...which (I think) is the point of this book (SoP) and possibly all her books...I don't really know...that's just what I gather from this book so far.

Anyway, one of the first exercises in the book is to create an  intuitive collage, where you pull various images that 'speak to you' (aka grab your attention) for whatever reason, without questioning the images, and make a collage with them.  Then write about the collage/analyze the images you chose.  I decided to make my collage on the notebook I planned on using for morning pages, and here it is:

I used the before-I-glued image, because the glue I used makes the images look really dark in photos...it looks just like this in real life, but take a photo, and it ends up super dark.  Anyway, the after-glue version looks exactly the same, but with neatened edges...

Not to get into it too much, the thing that surprised me about the collage was all the flower images I picked.  Don't get me wrong, I like flowers.  But they don't tend to be a recurring theme in a lot of things that I make.  And the magazines I used to make the collage weren't just full of flowers...most of the images of flowers came from ads in the magazines.  To get all hippy-dippy on you for a minute, it was like I subconsciously sought out the flower images.  In my mind, flowers are connected to growing, so maybe it's a mental pat on the back from me to myself for personal growth.  Or it could just be that I like flowers...

I don't know if I'll end up sticking with Julia this time or not...she's got a lot of hippy dippy, which I tend to be resistant to.  Although, because of art journaling, I'm learning to accept hippy dippy as it applies to me.  AKA subdued hippy dippy...which is basically learning to understand the principal behind the fancy, flowery, over-the-top wording of said hippy dippery.  I do know that it takes me FOREVER to write three pages worth of long-hand, so logistically, I can't see me doing morning pages everyday...I just don't have time for that/question my willingness to make time for that...but I've done morning pages three times so far and have already had a bit of a mental breakthrough (which I will probably end up sharing in another post), so maybe there is something to be said for making time for morning pages after all...

Now I'm off to make some art...or do morning pages...or eat...meh, I'm off to do something...