At a Snail's Pace

For DOCUMENTED LIFE this week, the art challenge was Gesso, and the prompt was: "The beginning is always today." -Mary Shelley

In keeping with my inadvertent wild kingdom theme, here's what I made:

A not-to-slimy snail!

I really liked that Mary Shelley quote, and I'll probably use the actual quote on some other journal page.  It brought to mind the fact that every day is a fresh start and a chance to do things differently...it's never too late for that and you never have to wait, you can just begin...

"It all starts here."
I used a tutorial I found on Pinterest to draw my snail.
You can find it on my board called "Draw".

I was thinking about that quote as I made my snail's shell.  I liked the way it spirals out bigger and bigger.  

I was thinking about how beginnings can be like that as well.  You start off slowly with something little and you gradually build on it and build on it and, over time, you find you're not at the beginning anymore...in fact, you're very far away from where you first started!

It's important to start from your heart!

At the center of my snail's shell is a little heart.  I think that must be where all things truly begin to take shape.  

If you'd have asked me in the past, I would have said everything starts in your mind.  You form an idea and plan and dream and all that and that's the start.

But I think I was wrong.  I think that it's all just an illusion at that point.  It's not quite real.

It's only when your heart gets involved in something that it has a proper start, because it goes from being a dream to something else...something you know you have to accomplish.  Sure, your brain is involved as well (hopefully anyway!), but it's not till your brain connects with your heart that you really start to create something.

I think that's the point where I'm at now...where my brain and my heart have finally connected and I know, both mentally and deep down inside, what it is I need to do.  It's a wonderful and slightly scary feeling and I'm interested to see where it takes me!

Things To Be

For JOURNAL 52 this week, the prompt is: 

"Think about the word 'being' and what it means to you.  This might mean being yourself and what makes you who you are, the things you do, or being present in the moment."

Here's what I came up with:

That clean water jar is a lie...I washed it just for you!

When I thought about this prompt, I knew pretty quickly what direction I wanted to go as far as the art went...

A little closer...this one is the most true to color...

...it would fit right in with my all-things-fauna theme I've got going so far this year... (I really hope insects count as 'fauna'...I mean, they're not 'flora', so they've got to be the other one, right?  That's what I'm going with anyway...)

"The best things to be: patient, smart, brave, kind."

I knew I wanted to draw a bee and have his black (thorax?) lines be words instead of just lines.  I felt like that was a pretty cool idea...

I do think he looks more like some sort of crazy wasp than a bee though...I think it's the crazy colors that make him more waspish...especially the green wings.  And possibly the blue-instead-of-black stripes...  But I do like the bright colors!

I wanted to make the letters really fat so that from farther away it would be hard to tell that they were words instead of stripes...which I think I succeeded at.  Unfortunately,  poor 'patient' is a little hard to read...I think it looks like it says 'pazzeni', which I don't think is really a word...but lets lie and call it Italian for 'patient', ok?  

Actually, if you took out the 'e' and 'n', it would be "pazzi" which actually is an Italian word...it means 'crazy'.  I only found that out when I googled 'pazzeni' just to make sure it wasn't some sort of foreign swear word...  It was a funny coincidence, because 'crazy' is a pretty accurate description of me, so whether you choose to read it as 'patient' or crazy, it's still true...

I tried to pick words for my bee's butt lines that describe what I am now in a small way, but also what I hope to practice this year.  "Being" is a verb, and (if elementary school English lessons aren't failing me) verbs are action words.  

I know a lot of people say the term as a kind of acceptance word...like "being present in the moment" or "just be"...which makes me think of a sort of stillness.  

I look at it more like this: "I am being patient/smart/brave/kind."  I think of it as practice...and once I practice enough, then I will actually become those things.  I will be able to say honestly that "I am brave/smart/patient/kind."...instead of just acting that way.

I like to think that at times I am all of those things...but not always.  I don't always make smart decisions...I'm not always brave enough to act...I don't always have kind thoughts...I'm not always patient as a saint.  And no one is going to always be those things...but I'd like to be those things more often.

I think that emotional and mental progress is kind of like trying to swim upstream...if you don't keep kicking, the current will pull you back to where you started!  It's not good to tread water too much, instead you've got keep moving forward, little by little, to get to where you want to be.

That's why I want to keep practicing 'being' until, one day, I just am.

Hello 2015!

Happy arbitrary marking of the passing of time day!  Hehehe...just kidding/being a weirdo...

My friend Twinkletoes left a comment saying she looked forward to "a fresh page that is 2015", and so I made this little guy in my journal today, just for her:

"Hello 2015!"

I drew the little sheep/goat with THIS TUTORIAL, which is fantastic and SUPER easy to follow.  The man that made this video tutorial also has several other video tutorials teaching you how to draw characters starting out with letters or numbers as the base of your drawing!  It's easy enough that a kid could do it, but for an adult that wants to learn, I think it's such an adorable place to start!  It makes me wonder what I could create out of my imagination using letters and numbers!  Anything that sparks our creative brains is an awesome thing, isn't it!?!

  This cutie was drawn using the number 4...can you see it?  (Hint: It's backwards...)  

I'm still amazed at the clean desk area...it's stinking awesome!

I colored in the page using a mix of watercolor pencils and Dylusions.  Those Dylusions pull double duty...they're great for spraying, and even better for using with a brush (in my opinion).  You can water them down A LOT and still have vibrant colors...I used the tiniest speck mixed with a whole gob of water for the colors today.

He's on the page opposite of my 2014 horsey...they are friends...

I'm looking forward to seeing how my art evolves in 2015.  Maybe I'll set my face obsession on the back-burner for a while and start a new animal obsession!  Maybe I'll finally start practicing my lettering like I've been threatening!  Maybe I'll lean away from busy pages and veer towards simple line drawings instead!  Who knows?!?

It's a new year!  The sky's the limit and the world's our oyster!

Here's hoping we all enjoy the adventure into the unknown that is 2015!

Brute Angel Or The Lighter Side of Joni Mitchell

Sometimes I have these strokes of creative genius...ok, maybe I'm the only one who sees it that way, but it still counts!

That's what happened to me for this week's JOURNAL 52 prompt "Sing a song in your art journal.  You can make a list of songs, illustrate a favorite song, use musical inspiration, or just free play create while listening to your favorite music!"

I almost always listen to music while I am creating art, so I wanted to do something a little different and I chose to go with illustrating one of the lyrics from a favorite song.

Here's the song I chose, "Down To You" by Joni Mitchell:

I love Joni.  Her music has been an adored part of my life for a long time.  I don't want anyone to mistake my...more comical...take on her lyrics for me being disrespectful!  That's so not the case!  

But I also didn't want to descend into the sad-sackery that's been plaguing me in recent months, and Joni's music can be so melancholy sometimes.  What I thought I would do is take her serious lyrics and put a lighthearted spin on them, to remind myself that even in sad times or frustrating situations, there is still space for joy and levity.  

Here's what I came up with:

"You're a brute.  You're an angel.  You can crawl.  You can fly too."
-Joni Mitchell

I have the suspicion that other people are either going to find this as silly and fun as I do or else be really confused...but I honestly really enjoy this page for what it is.  

Knowing the song inspiration behind it and then seeing this beefcake gal and her tiny wings flying through the air just makes me smile!  And that's what I wanted out of it, so how could I not be pleased?

I feel like I could have gone a lot of different directions with this song, and all of them be a complete opposite from the place I chose to go...and one day that might happen.

But for today, on the heels of Reverb14 and the Powerful feeling I have in my heart from it, I feel compelled by this musclebound gal!  

If all the girls I make are me, as I often feel they are, then surely I am feeling my power today and am confident that my tiny little wings can take me in any direction I choose.

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...

What's Left Over

The prompt for DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week was to "Use your under paper in a creative way."  In case you don't know, "under paper" is the paper you use so you don't get your desk/table/work surface all shmutz up with paint/spray ink/etc.  

The important words in that last sentence are you and your...because I don't really use under papers...  I just let my desk get all shmutzy...that way, later on, before I leave for work, my arms are celebration colored from all the spray inks that never quite wipe away completely...

In fact, I had to search high and low in my studio and I only came up with two under papers...

BUT...one of them ended up matching the opposite page in my DLP journal pretty well.  This was a completely unplanned event, so HUZZAH for serendipitous moments!

Here's what I ended up with:

Ta-da...

I found the quote on Pinterest, but apparently it's from a book/movie called "Captain Corelli's Mandolin".  I'm not sure which it's from, as I have never read/watched it, but according to Pinterest, it's from one or the other or possibly both...

Meh.

Though not my favorite face I've ever done, I do like her because she puts me in mind of Eilen Jewell, a singer/songwriter who I love, love, LOVE.  I didn't set out to make that happen, but when I finished the girl, that's who I immediately thought of.

Do they look a little alike, or is it all in my head?

I think I may have linked to one of her songs before, but here's another one that I can't seem to get enough of:

Sigh.  So melancholy and fantastic...I love it...

"Love itself is what's left over when being in love had burned away."

How fantastic is that scrapbook paper???  It's from a paper pack by DCWV called 'The Garden Tea Party'.  I find it EXTREMELY difficult to use because it's already so gorgeous...I always cringe a little when I do use it because I just want to stare at it lovingly and caress it and then put it safely away from my messiness.  I think this is my problem with all the scrapbook paper I have...I like it so much I don't want to use it...  And then I see more pretty papers and I must have those as well...and it leads to me having two huge shelves of scrapbook paper sitting there collecting dust...  Since space is at a premium in my studio,  I'm going to have to start knuckling down and forcing myself to use it more often.  I know this...but I still couldn't bring myself to cover up any of the focal image on this page.  

I think it worked out ok in this instance; the quote is enough.  That one little sentence is very profound, and, in my mind, the simple and sweet image contrasts well with the heavy words.  

This is one of those sentences I think everybody should pay attention to...or at least one that I wish I would have read as a young person.  I don't know if I would have appreciated it then though.

Only recently have I started to understand the expression about loving someone, but not being in love with them.  I guess, for me, it means being concerned for someone's future, but not wanting to be involved in that future...you want good things for a person, but don't want to be one of those good things.  *sigh*  It's hard to explain...

The quote from the journal page is like that too.  I don't know that I would have understood what it meant as a young person...not really.  When you're young, you have this idea that love will always be that initial, exciting, butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling...the one where everything the other person does is adorable and endearing.  But the truth is, real love isn't like that...or at least not often.  Real love is trudging through the muck together.  Real love is when those cute habits (Amy is so talkative, how sweet!) turn into annoying ones (Dear lord, does she ever shut up?!?).  Real love is when you can't stand listening to the other person for one more minute but you don't strangle them.  And yes, occasionally you still get butterflies in your stomach, but real love is getting from the moment of butterflies to the next moment of butterflies, and sometimes those moments are few and far between.  Real love is hard...and nobody seems to tell you that when you need to hear it most. 

Sometimes, when my husband tells me he loves me, I ask why.  And his response is "I don't know, I just do."  Every.Single.Time.  And I get so, so irritated.  Maybe it goes back to my former lack of emotions, to the days when I was only logical.  If you love me, there has to be a reason, there has to be something you can put your finger on and count and explain.  Why do you love me and not someone some other girl?  If you love me, why doesn't everyone love me?  And it bothers me that he can't come up with one stinking little reason.

  But maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe love is not like that for him.  Maybe he really doesn't know why.  

Sadly, that way of thinking is one I don't yet seem to be ready to understand.  Because if you asked me why I love someone, I could give you reasons.  I could explain to you that they make me laugh and they are kind and a million other reasons that make them different from anyone else.  Maybe what I'm looking for is the million reasons why I'm different.

I suppose that's a bit unfair.  As time goes by, I realize that there are people I find myself inexplicably drawn to.  Sure, I could name off a few reasons, but not enough to satisfy the question...not enough to explain why I care so deeply.  In that way, I suppose I'm not being fair to my husband when I try to force him to answer...

Love must come from a place so deep in our subconscious that we can't quite grasp it...like trying to remember a dream, or a word that's on the tip of your tongue but you just can't spit it out.

People are made of minutia, and I've found that there is a very thin line between the people you care for and the ones you don't.  Meaning I might love someone because they're funny, but I don't love someone else because they're not funny in the right way...  The differences between people are sometimes so small that we can't calculate them exactly, we only know that the differences are there.  Something you find endearing in one person, a quality that works well with all the other little details about them, may be a quality that you hate in someone with a different set of details.

As I get told, on a relatively regular basis, I think too much.  A friend at work likes to remind me that sometimes things just are the way they are and that's all...no reason to question, because facts are facts.  But, as I remind my friend, my brain doesn't work that way.  It would be a lot easier for me if it did.  Despite all the reasons that make it frustrating, my unquenchable brain thirst is one of the things that make me who I am...whether people find it annoying or endearing is up to them.  In combination with all my other qualities, it's one of my million reasons why I'm different.

Good Words and Bad Words

Let me tell you a little story:

Once upon a time, there was a young girl.  She was a very nice girl, despite her flaws. But she never saw that.  Perhaps she had been cursed, but for some reason or another, she could not believe the people in her life that said they loved her.  Instead of believing them, she had to believe the unkind people in her life.  The ones who said she was not all that good.  The ones who said she might be smart, but she would never be pretty.  Worst of all, the ones who said she was never loved nor would anyone ever love her.

One day, the girl got sick.  The doctors didn't know why she got sick, but she was.  And when she got sick, the girl began to change.  Her body started melting away.  She could see the change.  Other people could see the change too.  And all those people, the ones who said she wasn't pretty and that she would never be loved, began to see her in a different light.  Perhaps, they thought, they had been wrong...maybe this girl was worth something after all.  But what they couldn't see was that this sickness made the girl mean.  She didn't want their praise.  She wanted to punish them.  She wanted to punish everyone who had ever lied and said they loved her.  And now, in this melted body, she felt like she could.  But a black heart can't tell the difference between lies and the truth, so she punished everyone she knew.  In the end, even herself.

And then one day, out of the blue, the girl got better.  She wasn't sick anymore.  And, over time, her body came back and with it, the good bits of her heart.  And this girl had to live with her regret and the consequences of all the things she had ever done.  She lives with them still, down to this very day.

Me circa the year 2000.

Why did I tell you this sad little story?  Because it's true...it's the truth about a part of my past, and I had to tell you, so that I could explain my page for this week's JOURNAL 52 prompt, "Positive Words":

"Hot as Hell"

You see, I am a fluffy kind of gal...I almost always have been.  With the exception of a few years in my late teens/early 20s, when I lost more than 100 lbs in less than a year with no explanation whatsoever.  You can see my bout of skinny in the picture above.  In fact, I even got thinner than that...never a stick, but, for me, super skinny.  And the story I told you is true, I wasn't a very nice person when I was that size.  I'm not saying that all skinny people are bad, just that I was at the time.

About a year ago, I took my "skinny Amy" picture to work to show a lady in my office...people apparently need proof in order to believe that I had ever been a thin mint...  And the amount of shock displayed over said picture, led to other people wanting to see the picture...  Oh so many people were filled with surprise and disbelief that day...

Now, come back to the present with me.  Earlier this week, someone at work, who had not been there a year ago, mentioned the picture to me, saying: "I heard you used to be skinny..."x" said you were hot as hell!"

And, because everyone likes to be told they're attractive to others, this made me very happy...

But the more I thought about my alleged hotness, the sadder I got.  I was sad because these people see someone who used to be attractive...not a person who's currently attractive.  And nobody likes to feel ugly.

And then I thought about it some more.  And I got angry.  Because I remembered what I acted like then.  I was, by my standards anyway, a pretty horrible person.  Being thin gave me a rush of power...and we all know power tends to corrupt.  And I let myself become something I had always hated.  The pretty girl who knew just how pretty she was.  Not in a self confident way, but in an arrogant, conceited way.

For most of my life, I had a good personality.  I thought I had to.  I wasn't thin or pretty, so I had to make up for what I lacked with a great personality, a sweet disposition, and a willingness to do whatever anyone asked of me...because how else could I get them to love me?

But when I lost all that weight, suddenly being kind didn't matter anymore.  I was so haughty.  People wanted to be around me because I was easy on the eyes.  And when I realized that, I got really bitter.  And then I didn't want to be nice.  I wanted to cause trouble.  I wanted to destroy those stupid people who thought I was special just because I could wear tiny clothes.  And, in some small way, I succeeded.  If in no other way, I at least destroyed myself.

When the weight started coming back, I was left with all the bitterness and desire to hurt people that I felt when I was thin...and that was not me, not the real me, not the person I wanted to be.

What I am now is so much more than I ever was before.  Most days, I am confident.  I am proud of the things I can do.  I have a decent heart.  I have people that I truly love and who truly love me.  I want to have a great personality, a sweet disposition, and to help people again, but this time, I want to do those things, not because I need to to make someone love me, but because I choose it.  Because I love me.  Because I don't need someone else to tell me my value anymore.  I see who I am and I like the person I see.  I know my own value at last.

When I think about it, I get mad that most people see things in a very poor way.  I want to be loved just as much as the next person.  I want people to find me attractive and to want to be around me.  I want people to know I have value.  But a lot of people don't have that kind of vision.  I find that many people see only the outside, even though there's so much more to a human being than what kind of shell they live in.

I am no longer a thin mint.  I haven't been for quite some time.  Part of it is because food is delicious.  Part of it is because I don't want to run unless something very scary is chasing me...and even then, I don't want to be out of breath when I die...  But a bigger part of it is that my size is a protection.  It protects me from people who's vision is cloudy, from people who can't see that what I am is infinitely more important that what I look like.  And it also protects other people, people who I would probably end up hurting, were I thin enough to fool them into caring.  I protect my good heart with layers of fluffiness.

Today, I'm not sad and I'm not angry.  Today, I feel pity for the people who can't see that who I am now is way more hot than I ever was before.  Because if they could really see me, if they could see the person I am inside, they would know what beauty really looked like.  The shell eventually fades, and the only thing that remains is what's inside.  I've spent a long time and put forth a lot of effort to make my inside something I can be proud of...I won't let that be taken away...

So my positive words for today are "hot as hell", not because somebody who barely knows me told me I was pretty once, in a picture.  My positive words come from me...because I am one of the good people who understands that I am hot as hell right now, with my fluffy shell full of beautiful things.

Wishy Washy

Two days is a lot better than two weeks, am I right?  Make time for more of the good stuff!

I've got my DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) and JOURNAL 52 (J52) pieces to share with you today.

For DLP, the prompt was "Wish List", and here's what I did:

"I wish for: time, answers, understanding, enough."

I thought about putting a lot of different things on my wish list...because, honestly, there are a lot of things that would be really awesome to have (aka every art supply I wanted)...but when I thought about it a little harder, I realized that at some point, if I saved my pennies, I could just buy the art supply I desired...and I don't want to waste wishes on something I could easily do for myself!

No, no, no.  These wishes had to be things which I have a very small chance of getting...or at least things where effort on my behalf wouldn't change the outcome.  That's a much better use of my wishes!

I liked the girl blowing the dandelion fuzz away...and luckily enough, my mom had given me a page of cute dandelion wall decals, so, in addition to the hand drawn dandelion, they came to live on the spread too.

I thought about things like a never ending supply of chocolate milk or to have legs that were skinny enough to fit perfectly into cute boots.  (Seriously, even when the rest of me was skinny, my calves are the calves a steroid-using body builder wishes he had!)

You're all I've ever wanted.

...but even that seemed like not enough.  I mean, if I'm getting wishes, I'm not wasting them...not even on awesome footwear.

Pretty happy with my lettering!
I went really, really slow...it turned out...not too shabby!

My favorite wish...the most important one for me...is "Enough".  I'm not greedy...I don't want a lot...I just want enough of things (time, answers...money) not to have to stress!  That's the best wish I came up with I think!

For J52, the prompt was "Technology", and here's what I came up with:

Oh, the irony...

I was trying to decide whether I was a fan of technology or not...

Interestingly enough, I was just having a conversation with my husband about fear, and he said one of his worst fears is that "they" drop an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse).  If that happened, it would basically be like they broke electricity and nothing electronic would work.  He got mad at me because I said I'd basically be ok with that.  But it's true!

On one hand, I enjoy technology VERY much...I like being able to talk to my family on the phone...or to hop in the car and go see them whenever I want.  I  like to have information right at my fingertips whenever I happen to be curious about something.  I love being able to know people from all over the world who share the same interests I do...especially because I don't know anyone in my day-to-day life that does!  I love getting to see people's amazing art and I love all the inspiration and ideas that are exchanged!  And I love having access to interesting music...the internet is my sole source of good music.  I really like electricity and having access to clean and (if I choose) hot water in an instant!  I totally understand how limited my life would be if it weren't for technology...and how much more time consuming daily activities, such as bathing and cooking, would be if it weren't for technology.

On the opposite side, I am very completely a person who could live on the side of a mountain somewhere without electricity or indoor plumbing or internet access!  I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog before, but for the first 11 or 12 years of my life, I lived in a house with no running water.  We had an outhouse...we had a well with a hand pump...  And this was in the 80's and 90's in Ohio, not a third world nation or way back when...  I don't know if I recognized it as a kid so much, but it was an odd way to be raised for someone in my generation...  Because of my non-conventional childhood, I know that if electricity suddenly did disappear, I'd be ok with it!  I'd be inconvenienced, but I wouldn't be unable to survive or anything!

To be completely honest, I actually think I would enjoy that life very much!  There'd be a lot of hard work involved, but it would be honest work...there'd be a sense of accomplishment that went along with it.

Sometimes I think about all the things I have and ask myself if it was really worth exchanging my time for these things.  Because that's what it all boils down to for me...  It's so easy to get caught up in the 'wanties'...I want a new phone because mine is 6 months old and out of date...  I want a bigger TV because that's 'better' than the one I have.  I want....  I want...  I want...

Don't get me wrong, I like my things.  I appreciate having all my basic needs handled to the extent that I can sit here and ponder over the things I want...because there are a lot of people in the world who don't have that luxury.  But if it weren't for all those extras...if I was sitting in my mountain shack, doing just enough to ensure my survival...how much more enjoyable would my life be?  Or, how much more time would I have to enjoy life?  How much more would I appreciate the simple things?  Because I can google pictures of flowers all day long, but it will never be the same as seeing one right in front of me, smelling its fragrance, feeling the softness of the petals with my own hands...

I guess where technology is concerned, I'm kind of like what would happen if Big Foot married a robot and they had a child...  I'm Robofoot...  (or Bigbot...)  I like technology well enough, but I like the absence of it just as much.

What about you?  What's on your wish list?  Are you a technophobe, or do you enjoy the gadgets and gizmos?  Do you want to come live with me in my mountain retreat or is your idea of roughing it staying at a Motel 6 for the weekend?

You Choose

As a ridiculous word junkie, with the near inability to make an art journal page without words on it, I must say I really liked the prompt for Documented Life Project this week.  You can read more about it HERE, but the prompt was "Add an inspiring quote to guide your week."

I don't know about 'guiding my week', but something I needed to hear right now popped up on my Pinterest feed:

"You are never stuck.  You choose this day and every day."

I accidentally cropped my photo too close, but I swear it actually says 'this' not 'his'...the 't' is on the page...also, I giggled to myself, because, depending on how you look at it, the poor girl in this spread looks like she tripped and is falling over.  Hehehe...it made me laugh.  She's supposed to look like she's soaring off into the sky...instead, she's super clumsy like me and tripped over her ridiculously long dress.  I think it's hilarious...once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it.

This clumsy girl has a good point though...one that I needed to hear: I choose.  

I have a friend at my job who's always saying very profound things that I make so much sense to my whiny brain...it is kind of annoying.  Can't people just let you wallow in misery?  Ugh...

  Yesterday, I was...venting...complaining...whatever...about someone I deal with on a daily basis and I said "I don't understand why they act this way."  And stupid work philosopher says to me "Because you let them."  And you know what, work sage was right.  There are certain instances where you don't have a choice in what you put up with, but they are much more few and far between than I let myself believe.

I kind of cop out of facing confrontation by being a bit of a doormat.  Because I hate confrontation, in any form.  I complain about things, but I never do anything about them.  I make myself be a martyr to circumstances that are within my power to change.  But I "don't want to be the bad guy"...so I just lay under the bus as it rolls me over.

My work philosopher friend said to me: "Everybody in life is looking out for their own happiness.  It would be nice to think that somebody out their is looking out for you, but that's just not how the world works.  It's up to you to fight for your own happiness...I'm gonna get my happiness at any cost."

For the record, 'happiness at any cost' will one day be it's own art journal page...

And so work philosopher made me realize that I've been sitting around waiting for some benevolent soul to 'fix' things for me.  That I've been twiddling my thumbs, letting my life go by in the hopes that one day everything will be better, because I'm a decent person and I deserve it and how could the universe not send it to me...like a crazy person.  What I really need to do is stand up and fight for happiness, tooth and nail, with everything I've got.  The only person who will come along to save me is me.

And that led me to this:

"I want to say I love you and I want to say I hate you but I don't have the breath or the courage to let either one slip out.  All I know is this: Hell is a burning desire."

I know what I want.  I know what I need to be happy.  There's a burning desire inside of me for these things.  I make it hellish because I don't go after those things.  If I'm not willing to fight for happiness, then I probably don't deserve for someone to hand it to me.  I'm walking around in hell like I'm trapped when the door to get out is wide open, if I just walk through it.  Maybe I'm a little scared, because I don't know what's on the other side...but it has to be better.  And if it's not, then you just keep fighting for happiness, right?  It's a constant struggle to be happy, not a one time fight.  Life always throws things at us...we just have to keep fighting to beat it.  But, like anything else I suppose, the more you do it, the better you get...it will get easier, because you'll get stronger.

I guess I'm ready to find out what's on the other side of that door.

Acquire Pure Imagination

Sorry for the long haul of silence going on here for the past week or two!  I went out of town a little unexpectedly, and was without internet...oh, sweet internet, let us never part again!

On the opposite side, it is nice to have a break from the irresistible call of the web once in a while...it's amazing what you can do when you don't have the distraction!

One of the things I did was my Documented Life spread for week 16.  The Challenge was to use a cardboard food package in a creative way, and you can read more about that HERE.

And this is what I did:

"Betty Crocker couldn't stop the wild blueberry."
"The possibilities are endless when you disregard reality and acquire pure imagination..."

I used a pieces from a blueberry muffin box for my spread...the words ("Betty Crocker" and "Wild Blueberry") of course, but also, the white thing that the drawing is on is a piece from the box that I gessoed.  It was actually a pretty decent surface to work with!  I sketched out my monstrous blueberry and used my Koi travel watercolor set for his awesome bluish hue...  Parts of the writing, as well as the interesting flying ship thingie, were already on the paper, I added the rest of the writing using Elmer's Painters paint pens and the shadow using water soluble pens.

I think it's a pretty fun spread and I TOTALLY love the sentiment of disregarding reality and acquiring pure imagination...it makes even the most hum drum days special...

One thing I've been using my pure imagination for is my fake journal.  I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with the one spread a day, and I was right about that...but I have got another spread ready to share:

"She had the shivers and butterflies inside."
"In one kiss, you'll know all I haven't said." - Pablo Neruda

You can read the diary entry HERE, or just enjoy the artsy goodness above...

I actually have my spread for Journal 52 and this week's Documented Life Project done as well, but still need to take the pictures...I got them done on my internet-less retreat!  So, hopefully, I will get back to my normal posting routine and try to get those out in the next day or so...I don't like feeling like I'm late...especially when the hardest part is already done!

When I Grow Up

Thanks everybody for all the kind comments from last post.  It was really interesting to me to see how many of you understood exactly where I was coming from.  Sometimes, it's just nice to know we're not alone, isn't it? <3

For today, I've got a page...actually two pages...to share with you from my Journal 52 art journal (you can read more about J52 HERE)  The prompt for this past week was "What did you want to be when you were growing up/what is your dream job?"

I had a hard time with this prompt...I actually had to ask my mom if she could remember what I said I wanted to be!  

I've talked before about the fact that I don't really remember a lot of my childhood.  The funny thing is that I remember odd little things...tiny details...like smells and sounds of specific things.  But for the most part, huge chunks of it don't exist in my memory.  If my family starts talking about something that happened, I can remember more.

I grew up with a very not-nice father.  I think our brains make us forget things we can't handle, and I think that's why I don't have a lot of memories of being a kid.  So when I read the prompt (before I asked my mom if she could remember) "What did you want to be when you grew up?", I could only think of one thing:

"I think I just wanted to be free."

I remember VERY specifically wishing that I could be free.  To be free from my dad's ugliness...to be free from hypocrisy that I saw, even at an early age...to feel free to be a kid and not be afraid of what was going to happen to me if I was 'bad'.  My dad left when I was 16, and I felt very lucky when that happened.  He died a few years ago, and I'm lucky enough, most days, not to hate him anymore, but only pity him.

Freedom is a funny thing, because I don't know that we are ever truly free.  Not often, but sometimes, things my dad said to me when I was little pop into my brain.  

There were a lot of things that he said that don't bother me anymore.  Like being called stupid.  I'm not stupid...I'm actually pretty smart!  It doesn't bother me, because I have proof that he was wrong.  I'm at least smart enough to get myself through life, and who needs to be smarter than that?

But there are other things that I can't seem to shake.  The worst one for me is "No one will ever love you."  And I know that it's not true.  My brain knows that there are a lot of people out there that love me and care about me.  But feeling it, believing it...that's tricky.  Because love is not always a constant thing...once it's there, it can be taken away.  And we can fool ourselves into it and out of it.  And love isn't necessarily reciprocated, sometimes it's one-sided.  And we use the same word for loving food as we do for loving people and we throw around the word like it isn't such a precious thing as it is.  And so love is scary, but we all want it anyway.  We want it so bad it hurts.  And I don't think I'm the only one who feels like that.  I think in the back of a lot of people's minds, there is a tiny mean voice (or sometimes a big booming one) that says 'What if you are just unlovable?'  or 'What if it's a lie?' or 'What if no one loves you ever again?'

I work really hard to squish that lie.  I remind myself that it's a fact that my father was a lying jerk.  I remind myself that even when I don't feel loved, there are people out there just wishing they could make me feel it...even it I'm having a hard time seeing them.  I remind myself that, very importantly...maybe even most importantly, I love myself.  Therefore, at the very least, one person loves me.  And I remind myself that my family loves me...the ones who are my family by blood and my artsy family online too.  And then that mean voice that sounds like my dad shuts the hell up.  As it should.

And so that was my first page...but then I thought, 'Self, you need to have a happy page...you are depressing the crap out of everyone.'  So I texted my mom and asked her if she could remember what it was I dreamed of being when I grew up...

Look it's Baby Sweets!  That is me as a little kiddle, probably five or six years old with my younger sister, Gretchen.  It's really funny, because I couldn't remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I remembered what Gretchen wanted to be right away: a 'pay lady'.  For those who don't know (everybody reading this...haha), a 'pay lady' is a cashier.  When we would go to the grocery store, Mom would say "We're ready to go, we just have to pay the lady."  ...and so a cashier became the 'pay lady' to my sister...I think she just wanted to push all the buttons on the register.  For those who are wondering, Gretchen got to live her dream...she was several times in her life so far, a 'pay lady'. 

And mom said that she seemed to recall that I wanted to be a teacher or a writer.  I have absolutely NO recollection of wanting to be a teacher...Mom said I was really young when I wanted to be a teacher.  

But I did remember wanting to be a writer.  That was actually a dream of mine for a long time...I can't believe I didn't think of it!  Books were a big escape for me as a kid.  Mom would have to force me to go outside and play, and even then she'd practically have to frisk me to see if I was hiding a book!  I had a good imagination, and I remember reading things and them being so real to me.  I think that I wanted to be a writer so that I would be able to make up my own stories to live in...

"When I grow up, I want to be a writer." - Amy
I used the picture above as a reference, and I'm a little disappointed in the way it turned out.  Actually it was pretty good as a line drawing, but then I started coloring it in and  I should have just left it alone...  On the positive side, I do like that I used my (non-dominant) left hand to do the writing on the page...it looks like a little kid wrote it, which is what I wanted.

Thanks to the internet and the blog, I get to be a writer now.  In a small way, I get to live my dream...even if it doesn't pay any bills.  :)  I do get very excited when people comment that they like or relate to things I've written here, or when someone compliments something I've said or written in some way.  I started the blog as a way to share my art and to document my progress with that...but somewhere along the way, I started blabbing away and couldn't stop.  These days, a post doesn't feel finished to me until I've given you the story behind the art!  Maybe if my life were more interesting, I could have sold the copyrights by now! :)

So that's what I've got for today...I wanted to be free and I wanted to be a writer (and that, clearly, I was an adorable child...hehehe).  What did you want to be when you grew up?  What about now?  Has your dream job stayed the same, or do you have a different idea of what you want as an adult?  (Mine would be being independently wealthy and not having to have a day job...then I'd just make art and write about it all day long!)

I Meant To Say...And I Fixed It"

I'm so super excited about my page for this week's Journal 52 prompt!  (You can read more about J52 HERE.)  The prompt was 'Love Letters', and I think I diverged from my routine a little bit on this one, and I REALLY like the result so much:

"You are all the words I meant to say but couldn't scribble them down before they slipped away."

In the beginning I struggled a little with what I wanted to put on the page...and then it hit me.  One of my goals for this year is to work on my hand lettering...and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to practice...I mean, love letters...c'mon!

Because I am not the best with lettering, I used a piece of manila card stock to write out my quote (which is from a poem I wrote that can be found HERE if you want to read the whole thing).  It came out just right the first time!  ...I couldn't believe it either...  I wanted to make the paper look aged and like it had been read over and over...I got a little out of control with the Vintage Photo Distress Stain though, so the whole page is now brown...but that's ok, you can still read it!  I crumpled it up (after deliberating for a long time, because the writing was pretty good...for my skill level...but if you can make it once you can make it again, right?) and then used stamp pads to hit the high spots and make them stand out more.

Then on the watercolor paper (I've been using this as a base for all my J52 pages so far...and a lot of my other pages too...), I decided to pull out my Dylusions and used Vibrant Turquoise and White Linen colors mixed together.  An interesting thing happened...a happy accident, really.  I had sprayed the Turquoise first in a few spots and was going to spray the white into it right away, but had to go take the dog out (he insisted) and when I came back to the page, the turquoise had dried a lot.  But I figured they were water-soluble so they should still work, right?  And I sprayed the white over top.  What happened was these really cool areas where the turquoise sunk into the page and turned this grungy weird color...  I was a little disappointed at first, so I tried to cover it with more turquoise and white mixed and then dripped water in a few places...and it ended up being really cool and vintage looking.  I could never have figured that out if I was trying to do it on purpose!

When that dried, I stamped  all over the page using brown Stayzon ink and a stamp from Hero Arts called "La Letter"...and it was looking good!  Then I thought, what if I try to make it look older with some stamp pads (I mean, the ink box was already open...I HAD to!), and this time it happened like I wanted...(note to self: use stamp pads, not distress stain, for aging purposes).  

Then I wondered if I could make coffee cup stains on the page.  First I used Neocolor II's and they didn't give the effect I wanted...I almost thought I had ruined the page...so then I tried using brown India ink, drawing circles with a pipette to do it.  That was more of the look I was going for.  It didn't end up exactly how I wanted it to, but it has me going in the right direction, and with a little more practice, I think I can eventually get a really cool coffee cup stain.  But, even though it doesn't look like a coffee cup stain to me, it does look pretty cool!  When everything was dry, I took foam tape and stacked some pieces on top of each other in different thicknesses to attach the writing page to the background page.  I wanted it to look like somebody had just laid the note down and was coming back for it any minute...and it totally looks like that to me!!!  (Can you tell I'm excited by this page?)

Also, related to J52, I used a suggestion by my friend Pamikins to make some changes to one of last week's pages for the 'Abstract' prompt (it's SO much better now!):

"completely without meaning"
Thanks to Pamikins for the suggestion of adding words to the 'middle school art project page'...I also added thicker black lines, and I like this page WAY better now than I did before...It's still out of my comfort zone, but with the darker lines and the words, I no longer hate it!  I kind of like it more and more every time I look at it.  Thanks, Pamikins! <3

And then, related to suggestions for page fixing, I used a suggestion by my friend Patricia to change this page from last week's Documented Life spread...it was a little thing, but it makes a big difference to me:

Thanks to Patricia for the suggestion of adding something to the middle of the flower...I couldn't think of anything else, so I just did splatters with white and green india inks.  That small change made a BIG difference to me...It looks finished to me now, and I think that's what I was looking for.  Thanks, Patricia! <3

And then, I got some fabulous mail art from my friend, Cheryl, (Thank you, my Cheryl!!!) that I kept forgetting to photograph!  I finally remembered and here she is:

"What is true beauty?"
I got a surprise card from my sweet friend Cheryl with one of her gorgeous faces on it!  I love her so much (both Cheryl and the face she sent)!!!  I like how she just colors in parts and leaves white space...it makes me so happy.  And I love this gal's lips!

I am so happy with my J52 page for this week.  Out of my usual, ended up accidentally learning a few cool things, and got to practice my letter skills!  I always talk about how much my handwriting looks like a 12 year old boy's...and I notice a lot of other people aren't fans of theirs either!  What about you?  Do you like your handwriting?  Do you think you can have bad handwriting skills, but be good at hand lettering?  (I hope you can...or else my dreams will be shattered! haha)