That was...different

Hi!  How's it going?

I'm sitting here, drinking a Coke and singing along, LOUD and off-key, to Adele (if you sing loud enough, it makes up for the fact that you're bad at it, right?), trying to tell myself I want to go to work and not back to bed...  This is a lie I tell myself basically every single week day...

I've got my Journal 52 (J52) and Documented Life Project (DLP) pieces to share with you today, but FIRST...I was invited to be a part of a blog hop by Trece over at SIMPLYTRECE!  Thank you so much for thinking of me!  I was/am SO excited...my very first blog hop!  Yay!

So, for the hop, I had to answer 4 questions:

1. What am I working on?

2. How does my work differ from others of it's genre?

3. Why do I create what I do?

4. How does your creating process work?

And so I thought I would have another first and make a video where I flip through some of my journals and answer the above questions...so I did!  

Let me just say in advance, sorry for the weird portrait format of the video...if you make it full screen, it's not quite so bad...but I realized afterward that I could have done it in landscape format...for shame!  Also, apologies for all the "and, er, ums" and nervous laughter...but I do eventually get through the questions, with a relative amount of intelligence....so without further ado:

So, there you go, my first video...I am working on more videos right now, which will hopefully be a little easier to watch...much like art, I imagine it takes time to get better with doing the videos, so hopefully, I will get better at them...

That video is my excuse for being a little late in posting my art for last week...so let's get to that:

First, for J52, the prompt was "Passion".  What are you passionate about?

For me, passion is a hard word.  I mean, I'm passionate about things...art, sleeping, chocolate milk ...there's more, I'm sure.  

But to me, passion is a frustrating word, much like expectation...because it tends to lead to disappointment.  Passion is one of those emotions that are a little more scary than the others.  Because it kind of includes two people.  Passion is an emotion that you risk rejection over.

If you've got passionate feelings for another person, there's a chance that they don't feel that way about you.  One-sided love is a terrible, heart wrenching feeling.

Even if you've got passionate feelings about a cause or a thing, you run that same risk of rejection.  Because if you're passionate about something, you're going to talk about it...a lot...and maybe you discover that you're the only one who is passionate and to everyone else, the thing you care SO MUCH about is just a bore.  Then maybe you start to doubt your own judgement...if no one else cares, can it really be that important?

For a long time, I rejected getting too excited over anything for that very reason.  Strong opinions, strong emotions, convictions, passions...all of that was too tough, too scary.  So I didn't let myself be open about things.  If I don't reach out, I can't be rejected.  Nobody wants to be rejected.

Living like that is lonely and it is boring, and I got tired of being bored and lonely.

So now, I let myself be passionate over the things that I feel passionate about.

One thing that I got passionate about is abstract art...or trying to make abstract art.  Ever since it was a prompt for Journal 52, I have had this obsession with trying to make abstract art...or, I should say, GOOD abstract art.  (I still haven't been able to reach that goal...)

So for this week's "Passion" prompt. I decided to try to make an abstract piece of two people kissing, and here's what I ended up with:

Still not there...

The one thing I like about the page is the squiggly lines in the faces.  I had the thought of how some people think/used to think that when you kissed you exchanged souls or some such thing...  And I thought that it was an interesting idea that when we get passionate about a person, or a cause, that we are willing to share ourselves fully with whatever it is we are passionate about.  That's what those squiggle lines represent to me...

Of course, you may not see that...you might instead see a commercial for those Breath-rite strip things...  "If you want to kiss someone, you're gonna need open airways..."  Hahaha...

For DLP, the prompt was to "Use book pages or text paper" and here's my spread:

"Well that was...different."

I covered the whole spread in book pages from an old Spanish/English dictionary I had and then sprayed it with Dylusions.  And then I couldn't figure out what else to do...

So I thought I would try using Coarse Texture Gel (on the left page) and Gesso (on the right) over top of the sprayed page to see if it would seep through.  Both did a surprisingly good job at keeping the bottom layer of Dylusions (the orange/yellow/pink layer) from seeping through enough to mess with the top layer (the greens).  And then I was stuck again for something to do...

So I stopped working on the page and decided to do the first lesson of Willowing's free "Art, Heart, Healing" class, in which she shows you how to do her style of face.  When I was done, I realized I could just add the face I'd made into the journal using some washi tape.  I added washi on the other side to try to tie both pages together, and, since I had my face portion of the page spread, I knew it was time for words.

I am excited to try this background technique using different colors than orange and green.  I think this technique would lend itself well to aged colors as opposed to such bright ones...

For the letters, I sprayed some pages that were torn from my beloved Gregg journal, sprayed them with Dylusions, and, when they were dry, cut out the letters.

My version of a Tam/Willowing face.

For some reason, I think my girl looks a little sarcastic, and that's why I chose the journaling that I did.  It's kind of a jab at myself for being a little too cocky recently.

Before I make a move, I try to figure out all the possible outcomes.  I think it's smart to be as prepared as you can be.  But, the fact is, that sometimes, despite all the preparations you may make, people can still surprise you.  

That happened for me recently, and it kind of knocked me off my high horse.  This spread is to remind me that I don't have all the answers, and I don't always know what another person's reaction will be...no matter how well I know the person.

So, that's it for this time...hopefully the video wasn't too horrific to watch and I am really excited to try to get better at making them...the one I'm working on now is for sharing how I make my faces!  I've done picture tutorials before, but it's hard to put everything into still photos, so maybe the videos will help!