Sunday, May 4, 2014

I Love You For What You Can Do

The prompt for this week's Journal 52 page was to incorporate hands into your page.  You can read more about the prompt HERE.  

I will admit that I was a little reluctant about this prompt...and that I had a momentary lapse of sanity in regards to it...  Because hands are hard to draw...at least for me...and that's my go to answer to all prompts...I will draw my way out of this.  But that answer just wasn't jiving with this prompt.  I didn't want to do a collage, because fancy cutting gives me the hives, and all the magazines I have are comprised of tiny people with even tinier hands...it was a scissor-phobe's worst nightmare.  At one point, I even thought about doing a hand print turkey like a kindergartner...I was getting desperate.

Suddenly, I realized that, if I did trace my hand, I didn't have to use my whole hand.  I thought maybe I could make mountains by tracing my fingertips and then draw a person standing on them.  I felt like a genius.  But once I started tracing my fingers, I liked how they looked, so I just kept tracing.  Fingertips up the sides of the page.  And then I felt like less of a genius.  I had traced myself into a corner.

But I persevered.  I painted them green.  I liked the color, but still had no clue where to go from there. Then, I decided it couldn't get much worse, so maybe I'd just draw doodles in the fingertips.  I am not a natural doodler, so I was taking another chance.  But, as I have learned, if it gets too bad, a coat of gesso fixes everything...I could always start over.

But as luck would have it, I didn't have to gesso the page out of existence.  I actually thought it looked pretty groovy.  And that's when I decided to get REALLY bold...and traced my whole hand in the middle of the page.  And here's what I ended up with:

I ♥ U 4 what you can do

The thing about my hands is that I am very mean to them.  I call them my "actual man hands"...as in they are beefy and thick-fingered.  The rest of me is pretty thick and beefy as well, so at least we match.

But, as I looked at my chubby hand outline surrounded by those green tangled fingers, I thought to myself, "Wow, hands, look what you can do!"  My little sausage fingers will probably never play the piano, or send text messages without hitting forty letters I didn't mean to hit, but they do enable me to make some really cool art!  They are my fat little translators, taking what my brain says and passing it onto the page with ever-growing skill!  

I was suddenly very proud of my actual man hands...and so I decided to write the journaling: "I love you for what you can do."  I finished up my spread and gave my hands a treat in the form of some cobalt blue fingernail polish.  Which I promptly got gesso on...  But the thought was there, and that's what counts.  

Another thing my hands finished up recently was this spread:


"Who I am comes in waves."

I want to say a big THANK YOU to my friend, Boo, for the fish napkin that inspired this page.  She sent me a plethora of different napkins, which I keep on my desk and pet when I need a pick-me-up.  But I realized I can't just keep petting them forever...I need to use them!  So I picked the one with those colorful fishes and went to town in my gigantic Dylusions journal.


This picture is more true to color than the other...plus, look at me, with my fancy art shot!
It made me feel fancy anyway...

Those colorful fishes totally needed a mermaid to go with them.  I don't know what it is about mermaids, but that's two in close succession...I just did an adorable chubby mermaid for last week's Journal 52 spread (which you can see HERE)!  Apparently mermaids are currently rocking my world...

One last thing my glorious man hands do (in conjunction with my weird brain) is write this blog.  As of this post, my busy little fingers have written 200 posts!  I have 49 followers in total (still makes me feel like a cult leader to say "followers").  

And, thanks to you and your amazing hands, I have 14,865 page views.  That's completely insane to me!  I just want to say a big, humongous THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! to all of you who made that happen.  Your support and encouragement give me so much happiness that I can't even express it in words.  All I can do is say thank you again (and again and again) for coming to see me, taking the time to leave comments, and for subscribing to my blog.  You all make me feel so proud and excited and extremely lucky and grateful to be a part of the online art community.  Thank you. ♥♥♥

11 comments:

  1. Love the mermaid page so much. I think for me, it's the book page border. That really makes the fish pop off the page. The mermaid is so cute... did you see her bely button??? The doodles on the finger page are great! Your talent never ceases to amaze me! HUGS, Pamikins!

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    1. Darn auto correct *Belly Button*

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    2. Thanks Pamikins! The book page border makes me very happy. I didn't have it on there at first, and I felt like the page needed something else...and once I added the book page border, I was all "YAY!!!" and rays of sunshine shot out of the page...it was amazing! (haha) I'm glad you like the belly button...it's a question I've thought about a lot...do mermaids have belly buttons or do they hatch out of eggs like fish...I chose belly button for this mermaid... :D Thanks for the loving! <3<3<3

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  2. Love what you did with you hand page! Love your doodlage ;) and your mermaid is spectacular.... Yeah those fish on that napkin is fantastic!!! I'd pet the stack, too! And 200 posts, yippie doodles!

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    1. Thanks my honey! I am excited by all the things you mentioned too! :) Honestly, a true art journaler cannot help but to pet the stack, I think... :D

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  3. I think the hand looks very professional. I mean, it looks like an editorial illustration. V clever Clover! x

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    1. Thank you!!! That makes me feel REALLY good! I am grinning from ear to ear now! <3<3<3

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  4. First, thank you for so many out loud laughs at 7 am in the morning. You are so funny. Someday I would really like to talk to you in person. You are so funny. I was thinking of skipping the hand prompt too. Maybe your post will spur me on to do something after all. I really wish you would not talk bad about those fingers. If not for them, I would never get to laugh early in the morning. I love the way your traced them all the way around your page and doodled in them. The turkey comment is just toooooo funny. I love the mermaid. She is great and goes so well with the fishes. Glad you like the napkins. I have plenty more if you need some.

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    1. Thanks, Boo, on all accounts! I am glad I made you have the giggles! One day, we will definitely talk in person...we will make it happen! I'm very happy that you decided to do the hand page, I really loved your ode to your dad! It was beautiful and heartfelt. It made me teary eyed in a good way. <3

      I've decided to be much kinder to my chubby little sausage fingers after this post. I've really been unkind to them and they do so much for me! :D

      I swear to you, I was about two minutes away from a hand print turkey...at one point, it was much more than an idle threat... :)

      I'm glad that you like the mermaid! I tried to make something cool to go with those cool fishes!

      Thank you again for the napkins! I could not have made that page if it weren't for you, and I really like that page, so I am REALLY thankful for all the napkins!!! I keep trying to decide which one to use next, because they are all so awesome...I am having a hard time deciding! <3<3<3

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  5. Oh!! congrats on your page views. I'm a follower but I'm not joining a cult with you. :)

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    1. Thanks again! I understand your hesitation..."cult" has such a negative connotation... Even if I were to call it an art cult...it still just sounds bad...and I LOVE art! :)

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