Documented Life Week 3

Despite catching a case of the creeping crud from my husband, I'm still doing good on all my creative commitments...so YAY and Snoopy-style happy dance!  

Today I've got this week's Documented Life spread to share with you.  (You can read more about DL and join in the *free* fun HERE.)  The challenge this week was to use an envelope from your mailbox on your spread in some way.  It occurred to me that I had just used all those Sweet Red Clovers from my care packages last week...and that made me feel like I was secretly ahead of the game...or a trend setter...I'm not sure which...but either way, I told myself "Calm down, big head!" and figure out a different way to use the envelopes this time.  Here's what happened:

Documented Life, Week 3

I used Distress Stains in Tarnished Brass and Victorian Velvet for the page backgrounds.  My envelopes are the middle piece of paper on the left page and the three tiny envelopes from my Anna Banana  (two on the left, one on the right).

Left page close up.  You can see the envelope piece in the middle (the paper that says "Very well, then I contradict myself.")  That envelope and the large paper on the bottom (that was the front of a very sweet thank you card) both came from a friend I met through the KIOS blog-a-thon.  On top of the card front you can see two of the three tiny envelopes made by my friend Anna and sent to me in a care package!

The words on the paper are all lines from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman, which you can read HERE in it's lengthy entirety.  I've liked that poem, or specific parts of it at least, since I first read it.  Some people think it's a very egotistical poem, and I can see that viewpoint, but I don't feel that it is...it seems like it is more of a poem about acceptance and empathy to me.  That's how I read it anyway.  

I jumped around the poem and just picked some of the bits I liked and wrote them down in no particular order.

On this page, starting in the top left, it reads "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, (and under the card, which flips up it says) I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

Then on the papers and inside the envelopes, it says "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. (and the quote continues on the next page) I contain multitudes."

The right page close up.  This girl was one I had drawn (but not colored) for 29 Faces...she was my ode to Mucha, who's work I love...  I think I liked her better not colorized, but oh well, she's still pretty either way...and I have a picture of her in uncolored form to remember her by, so it's ok.  I'm happy she's finally in a journal and not floating around my desk anymore.  Also, the background page for this was a piece of scrapbook paper that I added to make enough spreads for 52 weeks...and look at the bottom middle, there's an envelope!  I didn't draw that stuff, and this was just the next page in the DL journal, so I thought it was a funny coincidence that letters were the challenge and I already had a letter on the page!  Crazy!

The Whitman quotes on this page say "no two alike and every one good" (which is just a little phrase/snippet that I really liked) and the last line of the poem, which has always grabbed my attention: "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

The line "I contain multitudes" is what inspired me to use Whitman quotes on this spread...because I was thinking of all the lovely care packages I've received since starting art journaling...every time I get an envelope, it contains multitudes of creativity, love, and inspiration AND lots of fun stuff for me to get to play with!  I am so grateful to all my artistic friends for the wonderful things they do for me, mentally/emotionally and physically!  You all are fabulous and I smooch your faces (after I'm not contagious...or from afar)! <3

And on that note, I'm off to take some NyQuil and sleep my cold away...