Gratitude

The challenge for Documented Life this week was to "Depict Gratitude In a Creative Way", and here's what I came up with:

"This too."
...as in 'This, too, shall pass.'

I went with a pretty simple, albeit time consuming, collage for this prompt.  The time consuming part was the background, which I made using the Vaseline technique with acrylic paints, so most of the time was spent waiting for the layers to dry (four layers to be exact).  Then I decided to add a layer with crackle (two more layers)...which was the wrong choice and I don't want to say "ruined" it, but will admit to needing to fix the mistake for sure...  So I ended up doing a light whitewashing over the whole background (yet another layer) which made it better than it was before, but not as good as before I decided to add the crackle layer.  For the record, I think I just used the wrong color choice on the crack layer and it wasn't the crackling itself that was bad...I still hold to the fact that it was a good idea...

So, with seven layers of paint, you can see why I said time consuming, right?

I decided to go with a simple collage for my page, instead of doing a drawing like I originally planned.  I wished I had thought of that before I whitewashed the background, because I think the collage elements would have stood out a lot better on a darker background...but it is what it is, and I still kinda like it.

The background on this spread was actually the inspiration for the entire piece...I had started doing the background because I had no idea what I wanted to do.  But once I got the layers (ALL SEVEN OF THEM) down, the background looked like a wall in an old house, all the paint peeling off, marking the years with color like the rings of a tree.  I've lived in houses like that all my life, and instead of looking shabby, it always looks homey to me.

So, between that nostalgic feeling and the hours I spent waiting for those layers to dry, when I looked at the page, it made me think about the passage of time.  

Sometimes, the thought of time passing is scary to me.  It goes by so very fast anymore, and I'm afraid of what happens when it runs out...

But there's also the good part about time going by, which is the fact that things change in time.  Problems are solved.  Wrongs are righted.  Happy times are had and hard times are forgotten.  

It's a good thing that we don't live in the same moment forever, even if it's a very happy moment...we'd probably just end up taking it for granted.  

I guess I'll take the bad times too, just so I can truly appreciate the good when it comes.  As long as I can still remember that the bad stuff does pass eventually, I'll be fine...and grateful that it does.

The Most Ugly of All Ducklings

I have a confession to make...

I don't share everything with you.

Today at work, while I probably should have been paying attention to typing, I was instead thinking about how weird it is that I can tell you all about my personal issues and plaster them all over the blog and it totally doesn't bother me at all.  For all intents and purposes, every person on the face of the earth could read some of my most private thoughts...and I'm cool with that.

But in my daily life, I'm not really like that.  Sure, I've got a few friends that I vent to, but I don't put it all out there like I do online.  On a daily basis, I'm a relatively private person.  I'll give you a moment to recover from the shock of that statement...

Don't get me wrong, I talk...a lot.  And if you heard me talk, you'd probably think I had no boundaries what-so-ever...that whatever came into my brain just flew out my mouth without a filter.  But that is just a grand illusion, my friend.

So then I started wondering if there was anything I didn't share with you...

I mean, despite all that personal stuff I talk about, there has to be something I hold back, right?

Not really.  You get pretty much all my gory brain and heart details...

You know what I don't share with you, though?

When I make something really ugly.

For all the deeply personal stuff I tell you, I realized that I never show you my ugly art.

Is it kind of odd that of all the things I probably shouldn't be sharing, hideous pages are the thing I keep to myself?

Yeah, it's weird.

I guess I don't mind telling you the private details of my life, because your opinion on that doesn't matter.  Sorry...  

I don't mean it doesn't matter, because I like it...in fact, I LOVE it...when you care enough about what's going on to comment and I've gotten so much encouragement and good advice from you since I've been blogging it out.  What I mean to say is that, when it comes to personal stuff, in the end, after considering what you've said, I am the one who makes the decision and lives with the consequences.  I chose to accept or sometimes reject your opinions...just like you do with your friends and family (that's right, I think of you guys as my friends and family!).

But when it comes to my art...your opinion matters to me SO MUCH!  Despite the fact that I've grown a lot as a person in the past few years, I still have a desperate ache for approval...for admonition...for other people to say I did something and it was good.  It's not always a desperate ache, sometimes it's a teeny tiny little gnawing in the back of my mind...but it's always there in some form or another...

And there are days, not a lot but some, that if I got a negative comment about my art, I feel like it would break me.  It would just crush me.  And I know, knowing myself as I do, that the next day I would probably wake up and be fine.  I would take that negative comment and use it as motivation to get better.  I would get a nice big dose of "I'll show you!" attitude and make something totally awesome!  It's just that first there's the crushing part...and I don't like the crushing part...

But during my mental conversation with myself at work today, I started thinking how unfair that was.  When I started out art journaling, it was kind of frustrating to see beautiful page after beautiful page from the artists I admired.  I wanted to see the ugly ones too...because it gave me hope.  Hope that I had a chance to make something half as pretty as what they made.

Now I'm not saying that anyone admires me...and I'm not tooting my own horn about my art (although sometimes I do, when I make something I end up being super proud of!)...but I've worked really hard to get to the point I'm at!  REALLY HARD!  There were a lot...A WHOLE STINKING LOT...of ugly pages...  One of the things that kept me going was thinking: 'if so-and-so (whatever artist I was inspired by at the time) can make an ugly page, then there's a chance I can make a decent one'!

And I'd like it very much for someone to say that about me one day...that amid my decent pages was an ugly one that gave them hope.  Well that can't happen if all you see are the pages I am relatively happy with!

And so in the end, I thought I would share an ugly page...and what I did about it  (sorry for the kinda crappy pictures):

I don't know what happened here...this ugly gal has been in my journal for months, while I stared at her with hatred and disappointment.   I think I tried to paint her using a big brush or only my fingers maybe?  And then she was so ugly I just walked away.

I think I decided that the eyes were the worst thing about her (although she was generally pretty hideous...), so I started there.  I fixed the whites of the eye, adjusted the size and shape of them, and made the iris darker.  I also started adding some shading around the eyes into the nose area.

I decided I didn't like how dark the eyes were, so I blotted them out as best I could and went over them with a lighter brown.  I added more shading around the eyes, nose, and chin/neck area and fixed her crooked nose.  I also decided to try to even out her lips... with a red that was WAY to bright for the page...

Goodbye red lips!  I added more shading to the neck and eyes, and then softened it with a skin tone so it wasn't such a harsh contrast.  I really liked the nose at this point, except that it was crooked...just like her lip...she looks a little maimed...as I fixed her face, that hair situation started to really stand out as terrible...

Added more shading to eyes and chin/neck area, fixed the nose so that it was more even, went back in to fix the lip...with a less shocking shade of red, and started to fixing her hair...

I added more shading to the nose...ended up giving her a weird beauty mark on the right side (your right, not hers) which I decided was weird in the way I like my weird...as well as the hair and neck area.  I went back to dark again for her eyes, it looked much better now that the rest of her was taken care of...added the pupils and some lashes, as well as the highlights.  Then I decided that red still wasn't cutting it, so I went with a darker color on the lips as well...added some shading and highlighting to them as well.

Here's the whole spread.  All in all, I am pretty happy with the way she ended up...especially when I remember where that poor girl started...

I like making faces more than anything else I do art-wise.  I think my girls reflect who I am and what I'm feeling...every single one of them.  I'm not the best at saying those things out loud, sometimes...but my girls give me a voice when mine is too timid to speak.  

I chose the quote for the page, because, like dreams, I don't have to share myself with anyone.  My thoughts and feelings belong to me...in fact, they are me...

What I tell you with words, no matter how private the thing may seem, it's never as intimate as me sharing my art stuff with you.  The things I say (or type) are like the edited version of the story but when I show the art, I'm giving you all the bits I left out.  It's like a puzzle, I guess and the art completes the puzzle.  It's the sordid details.  I think that's why I rarely put clothes on my girls, because they are me, naked and exposed, unprotected and vulnerable.  And when I make my art, it's the only time I ever feel safe enough to be that way...

And maybe that's the real reason I don't show the ugly pages...because I don't like to think of the ugly things I carry around inside of me.  I know they're there, but I don't want them to be.  I want to be ALL good, as a person and an artist.  But that's not possible is it?

Like the girl I showed you today, underneath it all, I'm ugly too.  And in the end, I'm just hoping that there's enough good to cover up the ugly.  I think that's something everyone hopes for.

Fight

For JOURNAL 52 this week, the prompt was "Wise Words" and here's what I came up with:

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." - Margaret Thatcher

Oh, so true Ms. Thatcher...in so many different areas of life...

It sometimes seems like all the battles I fight are constantly repeating in a never ending cycle.

I wonder if other people feel that way too, or is it something I do to myself?  

I guess the point is to keep fighting, right?  And one day, I'll be out of the trenches.

I'm looking forward to that.

Gratuitous closeup.  Relative happiness with the shading of the eyes...not so much with the highlights of them...

I went a little different for this face, as facial perfection is one of my constant battles.  I went back and watched some of the videos for Jane Davenport's "Express Yourself" workshop, especially the lesson about eyes.  I think this girl's eyes are very much "Jane" eyes...or at least the closest I could get her to have.  I was thinking about going back in and fixing the shading around those "Jane" eyes, until I realized that it kind of looked like the girl has two black eyes from all the battles she's constantly fighting...then I decided I like those shiners she's got and decided to let them alone.  She's earned her battle scars!

Maps And Charting Courses

For DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week, the prompt was to "Add A Map" and here's what I did:

I do love a nifty post card...saving my lazy butt from having to draw a map just gives it bonus points...

And here it is with the post card flipped over:

She's a little wonky looking, so the postcard covers up the wonky bits...plus it reminds me of a blindfold...the girl can't see where she's going...yeah, metaphors for life and stuff...

I like to think of my girl's wonky eye as a twitch...

Good old twitchy eye...she's tired of the curve balls.

...because I feel like I've got my own eyeball twitch going on right about now.  

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know how much time and effort I've put into getting myself to a place I'm happy with.  And I kinda thought that I was close to being done with that...you know, the home stretch...

But after the unexpected epiphany I talked about in the last post, I realized that the finish line is no where in sight.  *Sigh.*  All that work and I'm still not even close to done.  Maybe this is the point where I hit "the wall" and it seems like I'm not gonna reach my goal.  Then comes the second wind, right?  Yeah, I'm ready for the second wind now...

"Where do I go from here?"

I don't know if I've ever been much of a planner...  I think I've always been a bit of a jumper and then a figure-it-outer...  But now I'm older and I've gotten used to the relative stability that slowly crept into my life.  I guess I got these expectations that things would continue in a certain way...and now I see that's not the way it needs to be.  

I know it will be ok.  I will be ok.  I will figure it out and move forward.  I've done it before.  I can do it now.  But it won't be the headlong dive into the unknown that I'm somewhat used to.  Instead, it will have to be slow, calculated steps...and I don't like that; it makes me feel sneaky.  And I don't like or want to be sneaky...it just doesn't seem like I have much of a choice this time.

I've always been good at imagining the life that I want, but never at figuring out how to make it happen.  Now I've got to learn how to make a plan and stick to it.  I've changed a lot over the years, especially the last few...so maybe it won't be as hard as I think.  It's just a matter of looking at the map and charting the course.  And then, at some point, taking the first step in a new direction.

Tender and Afraid

First things first, I want to say thank you to everybody.  Somewhere over the course of the last week or so, I hit the 20,000 page view mark.  I'm a little late in seeing it actually, and I'm at about 20,200 right now.  I know that there are bloggers out there who get that many views in one day, and it's taken me a couple years to get there, but I'm totally cool with that.  My number one goal isn't to create content for other people, and I'm not constantly searching for ways to up my readership or anything (although if that happens, great!).  Mostly, this blog has become like a diary for me, and a place where I can be the truest version of myself that I know how to be...and it's like I'm sharing myself with you guys.  That's why I'm so glad to have my 20,000 page views...because it means that there are people out there in the world who like my weird ways enough to stick around.  That means a lot to me and I want to thank you wholeheartedly for it.

And now I will abruptly change the subject from a sappy thing to a crazy Amy thing...

For JOURNAL 52 this week, the prompt was "Napkins" and here's my page:

She's a little softer looking than my other girls, isn't she?  I think my girls are a reflection of me, and right now I'm feeling tender and afraid.

Have you ever had something happen to you, and in one single moment, your entire view of the world shifted?  Maybe it wasn't even a big thing, but suddenly you just have this epiphany and everything is different than it was before?  That happened to me last week.

I was talking to a friend of mine about something that's going on in my life right now that I needed some outside input on.  I was giving him a hypothetical question and I started the question by saying "I know you don't love me but..." and I finished whatever it was I was asking...barely.  Because right at the point I got out the "I know you don't love me" he says "I'm sorry".  And at the exact moment those words came out of his mouth, my brain went haywire.  How I managed to finish the original conversation, I have no idea... 

Those two little words rocked the boat so hard that the oars fell out and floated away.

I've always felt like love was a choice.  I choose who I love.  Other people choose to love or not to love.  It's only recently that I've entertained the idea that maybe it's not as much of a choice as I thought.  And when my friend innocently said "I'm sorry" it hit me hard that I've been wrong my whole life.

When you believe love is a choice, you think there's something you can do about it.  If someone doesn't love you, you think you can change their mind by doing something differently.  Stop talking so much, stop being so weird, lose weight, dye your hair, wear make up, whatever it is...then they'll love you.  I've fought really hard to make people change their mind and love me.  I've tried to make myself be worthy of love, because clearly whatever little thing I was doing made me unworthy and I had to fix it...but that's not true.

It seems funny to me now, but I never looked at it the opposite way.  When my friend said he was sorry he didn't love me, I realized that maybe he wants to...he wants to but can't.  Because it's not a choice to love someone.  You just love them or you don't.  They love you or they don't.  And no amount of effort is going to change that.

The idea of not having a choice about loving someone or not loving them totally shifts my life.  I've spent a lot of years trying to earn people's love.  I've also spent a lot of years telling myself I love certain people because I choose to...because they are good, decent people and I should love them...I want to love them because they deserve it.  And all that time, it seemed like my fault that I didn't feel that love like I should.  I want to love them, but I don't...not really.  

And now I have some tough choices to make...actual choices, not imaginary ones like before...and I don't know what to do.  It's a new world out there for me, and I'm scared.  Fear is one of those emotions I don't like to admit to having.  But right now, I'm scared to make the wrong choice.  Because regret is hard to live with...trust me, I know that one for sure.  But you never know what the wrong path is until you take it, do you?  And I'm standing at a fork in the road, knowing full well that at some point, I'm going to have to take a step in one of those directions...and I don't know what to do.  Not only do I not know what to do, I don't even know how to decide what to do.  I feel paralyzed by fear and uncertainty.

How do you know what the answer is?  How do you make the right choice and then act on it?

Darn Skippy

I feel like a bit of a cheat for this week's JOURNAL 52 page.  I had already done the background...it was one of my attempts at the sky idea I had in my head for last week's prompt, but they just refused to work out how I wanted them to, so I figured I'd just use them for backgrounds for some other project.  I didn't think I'd use one quite so fast though...

In addition to having an already done background, I just did a sketchy girl on the page with a plain old ink pen...all in all, I might have spent fifteen minutes on her...  Recently, I've been going gangbusters on my pages and they take me a long while to finish, so this quick gal feels a little bit like a rip off...but then again, I like her so much that I think she's perfect exactly how she is:

"The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering.
Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life."
-Vasudev

The prompt for J52 this week was "create a page in your journal for someone in your thoughts this week who needs a little love, hope, and encouragement – even if that person happens to be yourself!"

I just felt too awkward to make an encouraging page for someone who would never actually see the encouraging page...or else I am just awfully self-centered...I'm not sure which.  Either way, I ended up using a quote that makes me feel better personally...especially with that sassy gal giving me that funny look...

I got the quote while scrolling through Pinterest, my one-stop inspiration shop, and it really is something I needed to hear.  Whether it's true or not, it made me feel better.

I spend a lot of mental energy plotting different options.  I question everything...and then question those questions.  I sometimes wonder if I'm alone in this...because most people I know don't seem to be that way.  I think a lot of people see the surface of things and accept them at face value.  I am not that way...probably to a fault...I tend to need more information before I accept anything.  And even then, I suppose, my opinions are subject to change...so maybe I never really accept anything fully.  The funny thing is that I will also stick by my opinions and defend them relentlessly.  

A friend of mine told me that I always have to be right...but that's not really true.  I just need someone to show me why I should change my mind.  I like to think that I am not one to blindly follow...no matter how much I like a person, if I think they're wrong, they're wrong until they prove otherwise.  And being like that kind of goes back to the fact that I question everything.  Most of the time, I've already thought of the other side of the discussion...so I know what the problems are with that other side.  I don't like to argue, but discussing things...well that's a whole different kettle of fish...

Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me because of my constant questioning and need for information.  I know that everybody is different and that the world would be boring if we were all the same, but when everyone around you is one way and you are another...it's easy to feel weird about your quirks...and I do have quite a few of those to feel weird about.

My sassy, sketchy gal pal and the quote on my journal page are to remind me that maybe it's a good thing I'm not so sure about what's going on in my life...

But then again, I could be wrong...

  

Wonky Stitchery

As soon as I saw this week's DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) prompt, "Incorporate Fabric Onto Your Page", I got that whole Cotton Council theme song stuck in my head...you know, "The touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives."  Yeah...it's been playing on repeat in my brain ever since Saturday morning.  I'm glad this was an interesting prompt, otherwise I would be severely annoyed right now...

Aside from having the cotton song in my head, the other thing that happened right away was that I knew I was going to embroider the fabric that I would add to the page.  Here's what I ended up with:

Muslin on the right, Martha Stewart Acrylic Paint in Putty (Satin finish)...the muslin and the paint actually match pretty well...or at least close enough to work for me!

So I started out with two pieces of muslin in an embroidery hoop (because the muslin I have is very thin and the floss colors would show through otherwise...).  And in between the two layers of muslin, I added a piece of paper with some journaling I did about some stuff I wanted to get out, but didn't need to ever look at again.  I do believe that's a new take on hidden journaling...at least for me.

At any rate, I kind of made a reverse Mandala, starting at the outer edge and working my way to the middle with different stitches and various colors of floss.  On a side note, I learned to do embroidery when I was a kid, and I used to have such perfect, even, little stitches...I don't know what happened to that skill, because my stitches are SO not perfect, even, or little anymore...but I did remember how to do a French Knot without having to look it up and the last time I did a French Knot was probably 15 or 20 years ago, so I feel pretty positive about that...

The good thing about this is the floss colors, because they distract from the uneven everything else...

After I finished my embroidery piece to my relative satisfaction, I started putting down paint on my spread.  For some reason, I chose brown, turquoise, and silver...even though they didn't seem to match my fabric piece IN ANY WAY...  

Once I started looking at the embroidery and the background together, though, it started to remind me of something Native American.

I was going to use a quote from a fantastic poem called "Story From Bear Country" by Leslie Marmon Silko (which you can read HERE...the poem starts after the third sentence...I don't know why they have it laid out like that...), but I couldn't decide which part to use.  I played around with the thought of just copying down the whole poem, but decided against it.

"Though at times you'll be at your knees, it's better than just running blind.  I'll push you straight into the deep.  I'll challenge you, boy, every time." -John Butler Trio

Instead, I ended up using lyrics from this song, "Ragged Mile", by John Butler Trio:

I love this song and it's got that awesome tribal beat to it.

The lyrics actually go a long way in putting a positive spin on the journaling/frustrations I had written and then locked away forever in between my two layers of muslin...

Close-up of wonky stitchery...which is hiding even wonkier feelings underneath...stupid wonky feelings...

I think I like this spread...at least (or maybe I should say especially) the embroidery part of it.  I don't seem to find Zentangles very zen and I don't get that meditative vibe from fussy cutting like other people do, but, for me, there is something to be said for picking up a needle and thread and just letting what happens happen.  I think I may have to make sure to do a bit more of the flossy fun in the near future...if for no other reason than to get my stitching skills back in good order...

Color The Sky

For JOURNAL 52 this week the prompt was to "Color The Sky".  (I love that phrase!)

I started out with a whole different idea for this prompt...I was going to do a Dylusions+stencils thing that turned out being a pretty background, but not what I was going for at all...so that page will have to be the beginning of something else.  

I was disappointed at first, but then I made this page and I really, really love how it came together:

"And then there are magic days, and it's practically impossible to tell where the mountains stop and the sky begins."
I live near the Blue Ridge mountain area, and sometimes you really can't tell the difference between the tops of those glorious, hazy mountains and the sky!  East Tennessee is such a beautiful place to live...

I've had these Inkadinkado Blending Chalks forever and ever (like THESE but the 'Bold Brights' colors instead of the 'Soft Tones'), something I bought because they were on clearance and I thought I'd use them...and then they just sat there...literally for years...until tonight!!!

I had seen something similar to this on Pinterest using Pan Pastels and wondered if it would work with the chalks I already have...and success!  I cut wavy lines in a manila folder and then, using that as a stencil, blended the chalks onto the page using a makeup sponge (starting on the folder and pushing away onto the paper...don't do it the other way, your folder will bend ...don't ask me how I know that...).  I moved the folder around so that the lines would be in different places each time and I overlapped the previous chalk color a little as well.

I've spent the last hour adding pages like this to several of my journals...it takes about five minutes to do a page, so go ahead and do the math on how many pages I've done like this...it's addictive, and I think it looks SO COOL!  When I'm done here, I'm going to cut different shapes (pointy lines and what not) and do a couple more pages...I can't stop!!!

Just for the record, this is once again proof that it's ok to buy something just because it's on clearance and you will use it...eventually...*high fives fellow art supply hoarders*  

Now I'm wondering what else I can do with my under-utilized blending chalks...

And the gratuitous close up...

I even like my lettering attempt pretty well!  I've been reading Joanne Sharpe's The Art of Whimsical Lettering (thanks to the free trial month of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program...which seems like a pretty good deal, FYI, and they're not paying me to say that...  it's $10 a month after the free trial, and there are actually a bunch of art journaling books that are available...I think it will be worth it for me, but we'll see how I feel about it when the free trial part is over...).  Joanne Sharpe encourages you to learn to love your own handwriting and go from there, so I'm trying to put her advise to good use and take note of the parts I like and then work on the not-so-great parts...

Also thanks to the Kindle Unlimited program, I've been looking at No Excuses Art Journaling by Gina Rossi Armfield.  In an attempt to add more irons to the fire, I bought a 2015 planner after I had my tooth pulled on Wednesday and am going to try my own version of this type of journal...  I figure if I fail at it, I can still use the planner as 2015's bill book and I won't have to make one like I did this year...although I do love the gal that I painted on the front of this year's bill book, so I'm gonna have to cut out and keep her. 

I think there are some good ideas in the No Excuses book so I figure I'll give it a go and adjust a little bit for the parts that I can't use...nothing wrong with that, right?  

That's it for tonight, I guess...I'm off to do a chalky background in my new "No Excuses" planner right now...and then see what else I can put a chalky background on...the dog better watch out because at this point nothing's safe and, really, he could use a good chalk dusting to snazzy him up...

Tabs

I've had one of these weeks...the yuck kind of week.  One of the kittens passed away very unexpectedly and without warning.  Apparently, it's not uncommon for that to happen between 3 and 6 weeks for kittens, generally from birth defects, often related to their hearts.  But it's still very sad and makes me worry about the other kitten, who we've officially renamed Mortimer, because he just couldn't be "Fat Tony" without his brother Pauly, so now he's Mortimer and it suits him much better.

In addition to that sadness, I said goodbye to yet another tooth yesterday, in an emergency yanking.  For the record, if at all possible, try to avoid the emergency yankings, because they cost about 3.5 times as much as a yanking at your regular dentist.  On the opposite side, it was the most pain-free yanking I have ever had, so it was almost worth the extra money, because that sucker just popped right out and I looked at the dentist as he walked away and said "Was that it!?!"  It was a glorious moment for dentistry, let me tell you.  Also on the positive side, I'm running out of teeth to yank, and since they don't grow back, I'll very soon not have to deal with the tooth pain ever again!  And I can get dentures and be able to actually chew things again.  The prospect of chewing things is very exciting for me...

Also on the sad side of things: my walks had to be suspended due to stupid Daylight Savings time.  I am kind of in a funk about that.  But my friend Gayle and I have decided to have dinner once every two weeks until we can get back out on the trail.  And that's a good thing!

Also, weird emotional stuff keeps popping up for me this week and last.  I'm trying to avoid going down to blue funk town, but the waa-waa's have been kind of pervasive.  And you can see it in my JOURNAL 52 page for the "Stencil" prompt:

"You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, something not everyone knows how to love." -Warson Shire

I really like this page, despite the line backer body I seem to have given her.  Let's call it a metaphor for how we hold so much inside of us and not the fact that I wasn't paying attention to the scale of things when I drew the shoulder area...because it makes me sound so much more artistic the first way...

For DOCUMENTED LIFE this week, the prompt was to "Add a Tab" and this is what I came up with:

I used acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, modeling past with gelato added to color, dylusions, image transfers, and metallic foil embossing/rub-ons.

This is not one of my usual color combos...it's so...girly!  I think the only thing that saved it for me was the black Dylusions...  Once I added that, I really liked how it looked!

Here it is with the tags removed from the pockets.

I was really enjoying the foil embossing...can you tell?

"I got my own back." -Maya Angelou
"I was never one of those girls..."

One side of the tags ended up matching the page pretty exactly...the other side is brighter and bolder for sure:

"Look for the answer inside your question." -Rumi
"Very few of us are what we seem." -Agatha Christie

I think the girl with the Rumi quote is my favorite one...I really like the frame around her head.  Also, in happy accident territory, this is what happens when you are impatient and you don't let your gel medium dry completely during an image transfer...shame on me, but I also think it looks really cool!

I really like the "Tab" prompt, because it led me to do the pull-out tags.  I like that there's an interactive part to the page, most of my pages are not like that.  I think I am going to make it a goal to make my journals more interactive in the future.

Speaking of the future, are you as excited as I am for the new sessions of J52 and DLP?  The fact that I've stuck with two year-long projects is really motivating me to try to do even more, so I've also got some other plotting going on in my mind for projects next year...nothing concrete just yet, but the plotting is abounding! 

Have you heard of any other year-long weekly or monthly challenges in the works?  I'd love to have another thing to include in my plotting...