Enough Nerve

Today, I've got my spread for JOURNAL 52'S prompt "Collage Crazy":

"Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." -J.K. Rowling

I can't even explain how much I love this spread!

Scrapbook paper base, followed by napkins, a wash of color, followed by gesso through a stencil and some glorious drippage!

Hubba hubba!

It's not my usual for sure, but I really love how this turned out!   SQUEAL OF DELIGHT!  SQUEAL OF DELIGHT!

Sigh.  Glorious!

I'm magically in love with this spread, and I love the sentiment behind it as well...the idea that the world is my oyster if I can only work up some nerve...or moxy if you will...I love that word...moxy.

I've worked on getting my moxy back since I've made my major life move...and one thing I did was to get a haircut:

Ugh.  Selfies.  But on the positive side, my hair is fabulous.

Considering the fact that my hair was halfway down my back when I got this cut, I'd say that more than a little moxy was required.  But I love it!

When I got my haircut, the lady (who my sister uses and recommended) said "You know, you just have the perfect attitude to pull this haircut off."  Which I took as a huge compliment, because to me, short hair takes confidence.  You don't have anything to hide behind...to shrink into when you're nervous.  You're just out there!  

So maybe my moxy wasn't entirely gone...it was just simmering quietely beneath the surface...waiting to be let loose on the world...

To Live Without Definition

Another late one tonight...overtime and then mending a coat...sigh.  But I'm one post away from a month long blog-a-thon, so I'm doing a quickie tonight!

I used some happy mail napkins I got from my friends Boo and Pamikins quite a while ago, as well as some leftover's from my Journal 52 page for this week and ended up with this:

I guess it's a collage...

I had painted the background and then put other napkins on, but didn't like it...so I tried to take the napkins off...which ended up ripping the pages.  Oh well...let's just say it adds to the finished piece, ok?

"To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all."
-Oscar Wilde

I whited out the background on the page with the groups of girls, but left the colorful and crazy background for the individual girl...

While there have been times in my life I've wanted to fit in or, more correctly, to be accepted...those are two entirely separate things after all...I've never quite understood the desire to be like other people.  

In the past, I often wished that my brain functioned the way normal people's brains do...until I realized that most people's brains don't actually function all that well either.  I don't say that in a mean way...although now that I think about it it's probably hard to interpret that in any other way...

What I mean is that I see a lot of people putting "fitting in" over being happy.  I'm not always innocent of that crime myself...less so the older (and wiser) I get though.

The other day, a man I work with called me a free thinker and told me that I was therefore a rare and dangerous breed.  He said that generally people like me are misunderstood and tend to cause a lot of problems just by doing what comes naturally to them...because most people fear things that are different.  I think it was a compliment...

He's not wrong, I guess.  It's been my experience that people like to label things...and when they come across someone that doesn't fit into a predefined category, they're not exactly sure what to do about it.  I imagine that I've been very off-putting to a lot of people in my life so far.

I like to think that I have learned to temper my weirdness with kindness...that I don't try to shove my ways down anyone else's throat. 

I was thinking about Oscar Wilde's quote that I put on my spread today.

I always giggle to myself when people try too hard to stand apart from the crowd...because doing that just lands them in another crowd.  Maybe I'm just a little snobbish about my weirdness.

I wish that we lived in a world where everyone could be free to be themselves at all times.  I think people like to believe we live in that kind of world, but it's not true.  I've not met a person in my life, including me, who is not a watered-down version of the person they'd like to be.  And every single person I've ever known, again including myself, perpetuates the world as it is...because we like to pass judgement, consciously or not...we like our labels...we like to think we know what other people are, to be able to define them.  And to try to define another person is to judge them.

Starting now, I'd like to quit passing judgement on other people and, instead, to concentrate more fully on becoming the undiluted version of me.

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?

What Can I Say?

The prompt for Documented Life this week was "Feathers" and here's what I did:

Thank you to my Pamikins for the awesome crow napkin.  It is SO awesome and I wish I had a million of them, because I LOVE how it looks!

I cut my feathers out by hand...yes, that's fussy cutting two weeks in a row (WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME???) using scrapbook paper and some pages from my beloved Gregg journal.  I feel as though Gregg has been sorely neglected...I need to make things right with him...I love Gregg too much to leave him all alone for so long!

I'm slowly trying to use up my enormous scrapbook paper stash...I mean, I don't guess it's an enormous stash compared to other people's stashes...but it's definitely an enormous stash for me, because I hardly ever use it.  It's been calling my name more and more...I'm going to have to figure out how to incorporate it into some art stuff and appreciate it's magnificence in that way...instead of appreciating it's magnificence on the shelf... 

This was a rare spread for me, because it doesn't really mean anything.  I mean, look at it.  No quotes or anything!  And it's not because I didn't try!  I actually spent last night scrolling through Pinterest for some kind of words to add and I came up with NOTHING!  

Don't get me wrong, I like this spread...I like it pretty darn well actually...but there's just something weird going on here!

No quotes on this spread...fussy cutting two weeks in a row...no face has been drawn...it's like invasion of the body snatchers in my studio!  (I'M SCARED!!!)

The only thing I really associated with this spread was noticing that the birds here in East Tennessee are starting to flock together, gearing up for the trip South (just like me next week...heading to the beach!!!  I can't wait!)...a sure sign that fall is close at hand!  And I do love me some fall weather...  Maybe that's why I'm cool with this spread as it is and not TOO freaked out (...still a little freaked out...) by the no words/no face/fussy cutting that I've got going on...

Add to the list of weird things happening in this post...I can't think of anything else to add!  Usually I'm so wordy (you know me!), but seriously, I've got NOTHING!  Who am I and what happened to the real Sweets?

Maybe if I go work on my Journal 52 for this week she'll come back...it's worth a shot...  :)

I Love You For What You Can Do

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

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

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

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

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

I ♥ U 4 what you can do

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

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

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

Another thing my hands finished up recently was this spread:

"Who I am comes in waves."

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

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

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

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

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

Golden and Eternal

First and foremost, I want to say a BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC thank you to my friend, Boo, for all the beautiful napkins she sent me!  There were scads of them in the envelope...she is an expert napkin packer for sure!  I am super excited about the Joker one, which she used in her art HERE and which I ADORE (both the napkin and her piece...I LOVE how she used the Joker!) more than I can say, but there are so many other gorgeous ones that she made it hard for me to pick a favorite!  I'll just have to say that they are all my favorites and let that be that! :)  I'm a little excited...can you tell?  I can't wait to play...

Thank you, Boo, for all the napkin-y goodness!  You made my day!!!  Smooch!  Smooch!  SMOOCH!!!

Today, I have my Journal 52 page ready to share with you.  The prompt this week, which you can read more about HERE, was "Take inspiration from stars or the night sky".  And here's what I made:

"On soft spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - there's no need to say another word."
-Jack Kerouac , from"Big Sur"

I took a little inspiration from Van Gogh's "The Starry Night", although I don't know if it's readily evident...but I liked the swirl in his painting, and that made me attempt a swirl in mine...you'll have to decide for yourself if you see any similarity: 

I secretly think of Van Gogh as an art journaler...I know his work is looked at now as profound and amazing, but in my head, if he were living in this time period, he'd totally have a blog and be an art journaler almost exclusively...it's my imaginary world, and that's how I see him...I don't know why, but I can't help imagining each painting is another page in one of the most fantastic art journals ever...

As I look at my girl, I am noticing some things I didn't do (like shade the hair and add the eye glint) and now they're irritating me...I'm gonna have to go back and fix her a little...  Plus her nose reminds me of Michael Jackson...hehehe...poor girl!  I still like her and all...but once the MJ nose has been seen, it can't be unseen...

On the positive side, don't you just love that quote?  I'd like to be like that...to think that good will come out of everything...to be able to look at ordinary things and see magic.  

Part of me can...the creative part of me, for sure.  I think artists/creative types notice things other people don't and I think there's a good deal of magic in that.  We can see an ordinary thing for more than what it is...and we want to capture that 'more' on the page.  I think a good artist makes people take a second look at those ordinary things.  I think, if they had the chance to see just the right artwork for them, that there's not one person who could NOT be profoundly affected by that art.  Then again, maybe I'm a little biased...

On the opposite side, there are parts of me that are still slow to see things as 'golden and eternal'...at least the eternal part of that...  I am very good at being content...with however much or little I have.  Pretty well happy-go-lucky, I suppose.  I am ok with my life right now as it is...I've been in much worse situations mentally, physically, and emotionally...and yet, when I stop for a minute and clear my mind, I find myself thinking "I don't want it to be like this forever".  

A huge piece of me feels guilty over that...I know that people deal with much, much worse than I do...honestly, I used to be one of those people myself.  But things are better for me now...and so I think to myself  "How much more do you need?  What's it going to take?  Be happy with what you have, because you know there's worse out there.  Quit being so greedy for your ideals."  This has to do with how I was raised, I think...I don't know that I heard 'you can be anything you want to be' as a child...I heard that ambition is bad...that certain things are just not meant for me......maybe that's not how it was meant, but it got translated into my head that way.  The opposite side of that lesson was work hard and be happy with what you have...so it wasn't all bad, you see.  But I think it's a big part of the reason why I'm having such a hard time now...I'm a fantastic 'settler'...I'll settle for anything, work my butt off towing the line, and have a goofy grin on my face the whole time...

The more I learn to be my own person, though, the adult person...the decider of my own life and way of thinking...the more ambitious I become.  I think now that ambition is not all bad...blind ambition, yes, I imagine it is bad for anything to be all-consuming, have to get it, damn the consequences to those around you...  

But I believe if I wasn't at least a little ambitious, I wouldn't have made any improvements.  I wouldn't be making art.  I wouldn't be writing this blog.  I wouldn't be doing anything that I have come to love.  I wouldn't be learning and growing and getting to be a better version of myself.  Ambition has been good to me so far.

But it scares me a little too.  Because where do you stop?  Do I have the right to say I'm not happy...content, yes, but not quite happy...with a life that isn't bad?  I never thought I would be where I'm at...it was too much to think about...but I've come this far...should I hope to go farther?  A tree puts down roots and still it stretches towards the sky...but if that tree gets too tall, it'll tip right over.  In other words, where is the line between healthy growth and being a danger to yourself and those around you?  And how much should you care for the consequences your actions have on others?  If someone doesn't turn out to be who you thought, do you just ditch them?  Should you let other people stand in the way of your happiness so that they don't get hurt?  You can't let other people dictate your life, but can you just go around leaving scars in your wake?   Do you let a decent life go for a chance at what you think will be a better life?  You don't know that it will be better on the other side...do you risk it? What do you think?  What's the right answer?  

Life is for Learning or Art From Start to Finish

Wow, I may have fallen off the KIOS wagon, but three days in a row with art to share...way to go Sweets!  *pats self on back for an obscene amount of time*  

So...as a present to myself, I am taking Jane Davenport's (known as JD from this point on) Supplies Me class.  I had gotten her Whimsical Faces Video from Cloth Paper Scissors (when on super sale...egads, I love a good sale) and it was such a good video, probably the favorite one I've bought from them (so far...hehehe), and I knew I really wanted to take another of JD's classes at some point.  I just didn't think it would happen anytime soon.  But then, surprise Xmas bonus at work (HUZZAH!)=me getting to take one of her classes!

This is my Week 1 (Texture) homework for the class, from start to finish:

Light gesso layer, followed by washi tape, tissue paper, fancy napkins...

Followed by more washi, tissue paper, fancy napkins, and sheet music...and a coat of gesso where I smooshed the pages together while the gesso was still wet (for added texture)...

Followed by Dylusions sprayed through two different Heidi Swapp stencils.  Can I just tell you how much I didn't want to add anything else to the page at this point?  It was so vibrant and glorious...the picture just doesn't do it justice...GORGEOUSNESS!  ...but I was good and added more, starting with a layer of clear gesso...

The gesso faded out the Dylusions background a little bit...making it, as Donna Downey would say, touch worthy (hehehe)...  So here's where I started sketching in the face (with colored pencil...Trust me when I say to start sketching with colored pencils if you don't already.  I swear that was one of the best tips I picked up from the Whimsical Faces video...as a former compulsive eraser, I can testify that I LOVE not being able to erase now!).  Then a light coat of craft acrylic in a flesh-ish tone for the face and a light gesso wash in the hair area.

Blurry picture, why you so blurry?!?  As you can see (hopefully, despite the blur...), I started adding in more color and shading with Inktense pencils and Neocolor II's.  On a side note, I want the entire sets of both of those things now...especially the Neocolor II's.  Then more shading with some Distress Markers (which I got on clearance at Michaels...yay for clearance) and a little bit of Winter White acrylic paint for the eyeball whiteness...

Close-up of texture-y goodness!   This picture makes me so happy I could squeal!  Why can't all my phone pictures turn out so awesomely?  (I'm looking at you, blurry picture above!!!)

And because it worked so well the first time, another EXTREME close-up!

Finished face...used a Micron, a few gel pens, a Sharpie paint pen, Distress Markers, and Bombay India ink for the finishing touches... 

"Life is for learning."  (Quote from Joni Mitchell song which you can listen to below)  Finished spread!  I used Distress Marker, Bombay India Ink, Recollections Signature markers (which I've had FOREVER) and Sharpie paint pen for the lettering...and then splattered some of the India Ink on the page for a finishing touch...  On a side note, most of my desk is now splattered with India Ink...including my computer screen.  I am writing to you around dots of color...  I'm hoping it will come off (at least from the computer screen!), but if not, it's ok, my stuff is just extra decorated now...

And here's a photo collage of all the pictures above, just because I made it for the class, and because I feel extra technologically advanced for making it! *more shameless back patting of self*

 I LOVE this spread!  Aside from the hair (which I will be practicing thanks to an AWESOME video my friend Boo sent me the link for) and the lettering (which I will be forcing myself to practice...for real this time...), the thing is just swoon worthy!  Even the hair and lettering being less than perfect doesn't really bother me horrendously...I'm still self-swooning!

As promised, here is the song that I got the "Life is for learning." quote from (Woodstock by Joni Mitchell):

Aah, Joni, my love for you is boundless...I swoon for you...and this journal spread...and you...le sigh...

Now I'm off to start Week 2 of the Supplies Me class...colored pencils! Enjoy your creative life, wherever you are on this fine day...

Sweet and Gentle...Face 1 of 29

I am super excited for the 29 Faces challenge!  You all know of my enduring love of faces, so this challenge seems like the perfect one for me!  You can click on the picture below to find out more about 29 Faces:

My first face is in my huge Dylusions Creative Journal, which you may remember is also the book I am doing Inner Excavations work in...I'm actually killing two birds with one stone on this spread, first face and the IE spread are one and the same.

Napkin (from my darling Pamikins!) in the background, die cut flower border thingie (from the kind Laura E.), acrylic paint and Microns (black for girl outline, sepia for lettering...should have done both the same, but my black one seemed to be sputtering it's last...)

I had grand intentions for this spread, starting out with the beautiful napkin from Pamikins.  I rarely get too uptight about what I want something to look like.  I have a general idea of what I want to happen, but because my imagination can do a lot of things that my hands haven't learned to do quite yet, I try not to get too persnickety.  But with this page, I was a little over-confident.

"Self," I said, "self, we are going to do this, this, and this...it's going to be easy..."  And right there was the point I should have stopped myself, because the logical side of my brain knows that me and plans NEVER MESH!  But my logical side kept her mouth shut for some reason, so I forged ahead...  And, through a series of what I'm going to call critical errors, what was in my head was absolutely NOT what came out on the page!  

But all is not lost...I do like what ended up happening...it's just not what I planned for it to be.  Luckily, I do have more of the napkin to work with, I only used about a fourth of it in this spread, so I get to have a do-over and I can try my grandiose plan again...  And since I know what my critical errors were this time, I will at least make new mistakes next time!  

The positives on this page are:

• I experimented with a different color scheme.
• I like that the Eiffel Tower from the napkin shows through so clearly.
• I like that there is an interesting perspective, the girl looks in the foreground and the Tower in the distance...neat!
• I LOVE that I got to use some of the goodies from the care packages I've been sent.  (Thank you beautiful gals for the goodies!!!)
• I like the concept of the wind/breeze blowing the hair and dress.
• I REALLY like that the girl extends outside of the border I made around the edge of the pages.  I've seen that in other people's work, and I think it looks so awesome when people do it!

The questionable things for me were:

• The color scheme...I'm glad I went for something different, but I don't know that I am super enthralled with it.  
• I kind of didn't give this poor girl a neck.  I don't know what happened...  But she just looks a little neck-less to me.
• My lettering skills are something I really need to work on...I have complained about my horrible handwriting long enough, I need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
• I love the concept of the blowing breeze, but the execution is not correct.  I need to work on showing movement a little more smoothly.

So there you go...that's my 'realistic' critique of my own work...what do you think, is it a reasonable one?

I wish I could figure out how to get more accurate colors in my photos...the highlights in her hair are not bright yellow like they seem to be in this picture...  They are pretty contrast-y, but not quite as harsh as what the camera picked up...

"Hold on to the good with both hands, and let a sweet and gentle breeze blow over you and steal away the rest so you can be light and free."  Thank you to Boo for the idea of holding onto something with both hands...she said that in a comment once, I think in reference to joy, and I liked that phrase so much that I had to put it in a page! 

As far as the Inner Excavations work, the chapter I did this week was Chapter 5: I Look Closer.  This chapter deals with what we see when we look at ourselves.  There were some prompts to take self portrait pictures, and so I did that...nothing too spectacular came about...I've seen my face...so have you if you've been reading the blog for a while...  This chapter (and the whole book, really) deals with the internal aspect as opposed to outward appearance.  And I kind of giggled to myself a little, because when I think about the art I've been making and the things I've been writing on the blog, it seems like everything I do, especially lately, deals with my inner self.  I've made a lot of changes, and there are still a lot of things I want to change as well.  I've had so many highs, and I've had a few pity parties.  Since I talk a lot about myself in my spreads and on the blog already, I really wanted to make this spread be an overview instead of being specific.  So how do I see me?  I see myself grabbing up the good and letting the not-so-good get swept far, far away from me.  

When I first started making art and doing the blog, I didn't  have anywhere near the amount of self-awareness that I do now.  Seriously, go back to the beginning and look for yourself!  I made art for the sake of making art and then I showed pictures on the blog.  I wasn't always a blabbermouth about the squishy inside stuff.  I've never really been that kind of person...

I don't know when or how the switch happened exactly...I just know I view things a lot differently now.  I can admit to having emotions... (What? I have emotions???  I know, it was a shock to me too!)   Before, outwardly, I was in a constant state of denial or, in the very least, silence.  Internal-wise, everything stayed in my head, spinning around and around on a constant loop!  I was fixated on everything and nothing at the same time.  I never let anything out of my head, so it just stayed there and became a stagnant hurricane.  I couldn't concentrate on one thing long enough to work to fix it because there was so much clutter in there that everything fell into my lap at one time.  There was just no way to function!

At some point, I realized that I was doing art, but not art journaling.  I wanted to be able to look back at my life and know how I felt when I made a certain piece.  So I just started.  I'm sure I started pretty small, but I made myself put some little piece of me into what I made.  A little practice...and a little bit of forcing myself to do something I wasn't quite comfortable with...was all it took.  Once I started earnestly trying to get things out, they started to flow out really quickly!  There were (and continue to be) a lot of things that have taken me by surprise...feelings I didn't know I had, thoughts I was entirely unaware of!  I could put something onto a page and it would stay there...it would quit circling around in my brain!  I could pull out all the bits and pieces, put them on a page and form relevant conclusions!  I could look at an issue and think about it rationally...I could analyze it...I could figure out what was behind it and what I could do to change it if I wanted to!  I can't even begin to explain how much of a relief it is.

When I write about it on the blog, I kind of feel like I'm getting to share, not only my art, but also my life...my inner workings...my progress and setbacks.  All my life, I've kind of felt like a lone weirdo in a world of people so different from me.  Normal is boring, I know, but it's pretty lonely if you've always got the feeling that you're on the outside looking in.  Since I started sharing all this beautiful mess, I've gotten to know that other people feel the same as I do, or at least that they understand where I'm coming...it's an amazing and beautiful thing!

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said "We read to know we are not alone.", but for me, I want to change it to write.  I write to know I'm not alone...and for other people to know that they're not alone either.  At first, I wrote the blog so that I could share my art...I wanted critique...I wanted validation...I wanted someone to tell me I was decent...or at least to tell me how I could become better.  I can't lie, I still kind of want that! (Haha!)  But now, more than solely being about trying to make art, I want to write all my jibber-jabber that goes along with the art...I want people to know that they are not the only ones who feel a certain way.  I want people to see the good parts and the messed up parts and everything in between.  Every time my brain spits out some randomness, I want to type it out as fast as I can and look around and see who else feels the same way...so that both of us can know we're not lone weirdos!  We're at least a group of weirdos...and if there's a group of us, we can't be that weird after all.

A Plan For A Book

I don't know if you are aware, but I have a love for outdated vintage things.  I just want to point out, however, that I'm not some lame hipster that "liked it before it was cool".  Although I did like vintage before it was cool...at least before the whole vintage-is-cool thing cycled back in my lifetime.  I have come to realize that ALL trends are cyclical and therefore, nobody alive now has liked anything 'before it was cool' because everything is a gigantic repeat...  So I both liked vintage before it was cool and did not like it before it was cool at the exact same time.  

Did I just blow your mind with that ramble?  Hehehe...  This is the kind of thinking that goes on in my head all day every day...my brain is very random.  (Yes, it IS exhausting...)  But I digress...

Back to the original point, I love vintage things...of all sorts.  I really enjoy what I call "hideous 70s"...a lot of my favorite things in my house fit into this category.  I don't think they're hideous, I love them, but most people who see these things would say "Yuck!  Look at that hideous 70s *insert name of thing here* ."  I tend to grab what I like and I love that nothing I own matches...it's a big pile of random junk that all happens to make my random brain super happy. 

I also love old pictures...the candid daily life kind especially.  I like to make up funny stories about the people in the pictures and pretend that they are my eccentric extended family.  

I also LOVE books.  All books.  Every book.  Just for being a book.  Especially old books...but really all books... I JUST LOVE BOOKS!  

When I was a little girl, we used to go to the library in the town we lived in (Lisbon, Ohio), which was old and glorious, the Lepper Library (you can read a little history about the library HERE):

Yes...look at the how amazing it is!  I did a google search to see if I could find any pictures of it and I saw this one...(there are more if you want to see it during the day, just google Lepper Library Lisbon Ohio)...This picture does a great job at portraying how extremely magical this place was to me as a child...and how warm my memories of it are as an adult.  I don't have a whole heaping lot of good memories from when I was a kid, but this place is one of my precious few.  I can remember they used to have a gigantic lop-eared bunny named Bookmark that belonged to one of the librarians that stayed at the library during the day and you could pet him!  And I remember this library has THE BEST old book smell of any old book smelling place I have every smelled in my life.  

In part because of the Lepper Library, I have a huge amount of love and respect for all books.  I love them. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

I have wanted to make a book into an art journal for a long time now.  I've seen a lot of different versions of this all around the internet, and really like the way they look.  They are just awesome and I really wanted to start one of my own quite a lot.

So when I was visiting my brother and sister in Ohio and we went to the fabulous Roger's sale (it's a gigantic flea market that is also one of my precious few good memories from when I was a child)...the same day I got my STINKING AWESOME vintage typewriter...and I bought this old book and another one for fifty cents a piece:

I knew to look for a sewn binding and a cover that was in good condition...and so I picked this guy...for fifty cents, a total bargain!

Look at that!  I think it's so neat that people actually know how to do this...or did...I don't know if shorthand is still used in a practical way...maybe it's what court room stenographer people use?  I don't know if she can read this, but I know that my mom knows/knew how to read and write in Gregg shorthand.  I'm not gonna lie...I kind of want to learn it just to say I know how.  But then again, when I think about it, I am a pretty fast writer and my handwriting is so horrifyingly bad that it's basically illegible to others, so I must be very proficient in Sweet's shorthand...

I'm a reasonably fast typer...between 55 and 60 words a minute with 100 percent accuracy...(thank you, thank you, I will be signing autographs after the show... haha)...I value the accuracy over the speed...  at any rate, this book is saying that it wants you to shorthand 70 words per minute!  That's stinking crazy!  As you can see, there are practice letters in the book, so you can increase your speed through diligence.  The best thing is that there are pages of definitions for various industries that required one to know shorthand, including banking and law...but there were also definitions for automotive and aviation as well...just how many mechanics had secretaries taking dictation for them???

So I really love this book...it's been sitting in my studio since I got back from Ohio...I've been looking at it everyday.  I open it up...touch the pages lovingly...stick my nose in the pages and give it a sniff (that's not weird!  I love how old book smell smells!  STOP JUDGING ME!!!)...caress the cover gently...then tenderly lay it down and say 'not today beautiful...not today...'  I just couldn't seem to make myself take action...I know, I know... I have issues...  But I just couldn't hurt the book...until today...when I finally did this:

I kind of wanted to cry when I first started ripping...there may have been a lump in my throat...  I said STOP JUDGING ME!!!  I KNOW it's weird!  I will be keeping these pages to use as well, so they're not going to waste.  I use ALL the buffalo when I kill it...I show it honor and respect in that way.

I just had to make myself do it.  I had bought Gregg, which is what I will be calling this journal from now on, with the sole intention of making him into an art journal.  That's the whole reason I got him!  I HAD TO DO IT GREGG, I'M SORRY!!!  I kind feel like Tom Hanks in "Castaway" when Wilson (the volley ball) gets lost at sea...

"GREGG!!!!  I'M SORRY, GREGG!!!"  *me sobbing hysterically*

But then it was all over and I was on a plane going back to the woman who had moved on because she thought I was dead.  ...oh wait...that was Tom Hanks...

What I did was make this page:

I tried my best to be respectful of Gregg...I am remaking the book with love.  I couldn't bear to cover over the copyright dates (1932, 1938...just think about all the people who touched Gregg in his lifetime!  AMAZING!)  on the left page, so I added in the date I started on remaking him and added my name to the copyrights as well.  In the end, he will be as much mine as he is yours, The Gregg Publishing Company, so deal with it!  I was thinking about how it would be poetic justice for this book to be worth a huge wad of cash if I hadn't started to alter it...it would serve me right for viciously ripping out Gregg's pages...

I used a napkin given to me by my friend Cheryl to create the above page.  I do believe that this was one of the first care packages I ever received, and I hadn't used any of the neat things she sent me!  I was scared to use them because they are so special to me!  But I finally coaxed myself into doing it, realizing that Gregg had sacrificed his old life in order to make me happy, so if I could, I should show him just how much I appreciate it by using things that are special to me to decorate his pages.  Additionally, in M3, one of the Facebook groups I'm in, there's a challenge going on to use things other people have given you in a piece, so this is one of the things I worked on for that challenge.  I really wanted to keep it simple this time, I didn't do a huge amount of altering the napkin, and there's not a whole heaping lot going on...but I REALLY like how it turned out...it looks kind of vintage still and I like that...I feel like it shows respect to Gregg's former life...all that good stuff...

And then again, completely different from the first page in the book and in keeping with my love of random randomness, I thought I would also add some things to Gregg's pages in this manner:

I went a little wild with the washi tape...but I like how this ended up looking quite a bit...She looks even better in real life!   I drew her with a black micron and colored her in with Sharpie poster paint markers...I still really like the poster paint markers much better than the regular Sharpie paint markers...I need to find a white one really badly and see if it's as awesome as the other colors... I am happy I added this gal to Gregg's pages...I believe there will be more of this type of addition in the future...  Perhaps some of my favorite ICAD cards that I don't know what else to do with...maybe a few of my lesser loved Happy Thoughts...the ones that no one shows an interest in...which I do have some more Happy Thoughts ready to be shared, I just need to change my typewriter ribbon so I can get the word parts pasted down...and then we'll have a Happy Thoughts free-for-all again!

I can't wait to put more into Gregg...I have a feeling he's going to be a much different style journal than my others...and I'm pretty excited about that!  

For a while, I was kind of concerned about finding 'my style'.  You know...how you can look at art and just know without a doubt it's by a certain person.  For a while, I wanted that SO BAD!!!  I can't lie, I am still a little jealous of people who have found their niche.  I love to be able to go on the Facebook groups I'm in or be on a blog I love and say "Now that's a classic so-and-so beauty right there!"  But I don't think that will ever be me...and I'm ok with that.  I've come to see that I'm a random person...I like what I like and do whatever comes to mind... and my art journal pages will always probably be just as random as I am.  Maybe I'm wrong, and I do have a style...I know I do faces a lot, but I think they're always too different to be known as 'my style'...  I'm interested in what you all think about that...do you think I have a style?  Can you identify my stuff as mine without knowing it's mine (and if so, how do you know)?  Or am I right and I'm totally random?  I'm interested in what you think about everything, so as always, any comments are appreciated and loved beyond words.    

I'm off now to go find some delicious and healthy food to eat...  Big squishes to you all!

On and on...

Words can't really express my gratitude for all the kind and beautiful comments from yesterday's post.  Every single on of them made my heart swell  with love.  You can't imagine how much you all lift me up and make me want to just give you gigantic smooches and squishes.  Thank you all so very much.

I was thinking about all the kind comments I received yesterday while I was trying to work on the spread for my BOD (Book of Days) journal.  I also had some music going on in the background, as I always do.  There was this serendipitous moment where I stopped working and looked up at the computer, still having the comments from yesterday's post on the screen, and my eyes landed on my lovely Pamikins comment where she wrote: "please understand, your legacy will live on Your art speaks volumes, it will always live on" (What a HUGE compliment!)  and the song in the background was playing and the lyrics were "She's still got infinity ahead of her".  And I stopped in my tracks, poured some gesso over the page I had originally started and began working on this:

"She's still got infinity ahead of her..."  napkin, Dylusions, stencils, die cuts, Silks acrylic glazes, glittery border stickers, Aquamarkers, and shimmery (I wanted to call it pearlescent...but spell check is telling me that's either not a word or REALLY not spelled right) acrylic paint

Also a moment of awesomeness is that I used a napkin that my darling Pamikins had sent me in a care package...I didn't realize it till after I'd glued it down, but I do believe that paisley napkin came from her!  So Paminkins, you get a whole heap of credit today!

And, to a lesser extent, this song also gets some credit:

Really, all the comments from yesterday and every day before share the credit.  I know I wouldn't be where I'm at know if it weren't for the loving and the encouragement and the keep-at-it's that folks have been kind enough to bestow on me.  I guess what I'm saying is that it takes a village to raise a Sweet Red Clover...and you all are my village.

I've Got Mail (Art)!

Saturday, I walked out to the mailbox and found something something really awesome: Mail Art!  I am EXCITED!

This is the first mail art I have gotten, and my lovely friend Cheryl actually sent me two separate things!  On Saturday, when I first opened the mail box, I saw this peeping out at me:

My band-aid collage from Cheryl!

I love the girl's face (I have a thing for faces...aka an obsession) and I really admire Cheryl's collages...she is one of the people who inspired me to try my own collage that I shared a few posts back!  The ephemera on this piece is so neat...it makes me wonder if Cheryl has a big huge room full of old magazines and newspapers...and then it made me wonder if I can go visit Cheryl and her room and swipe some good stuff! (ha ha)

And then, today when I came home from work, as I was looking through the the mail, I was super surprised to find another piece of mail art!  (She's so sneaky!  I didn't know there were going to be two!) I saw this beautiful diamond among the coal (aka a big stack of bills...boo for bills!):

An envelope busting at the seams with goodies!!!

So, I opened (extra carefully) the envelope (because it's so pretty, I want to keep it!) and check out all the neat things that it contained:

Some really great sheet music...I don't know what song this is, but if I remember music class correctly, I bet it's a peppy song...IF I remember right...just know that music class was a long time ago...

This sweet patchwork heart napkin!  I also sew a little, so this is very cool  on two levels!

This beautiful bird napkin (I can't wait to use it!)...I am really going to have to check out the napkin section next time I go to the store, because I am missing out on some really cool stuff it seems!

This wonderful ATC (artist trading card)...I love silhouettes!  And this one has just the perfect amount of sparkly goodness...I wish I was a better photographer so you could see just how perfect it is!

And this amazingly gorgeous ATC, which I love, love, LOVE!!!  There really aren't enough exclamation points or letters UPPER CASE enough for me to express how much I love this ATC!

I am so happy and excited about receiving such lovely art!  Thank you, Cheryl, so very much for making my day with your beautiful pieces and fun goodies too!  I sent my mail art to Cheryl this morning before work, and I was so excited, I actually forgot to take pictures!  I was literally skipping into the post office...for the record, when an adult skips into the post office, the man at the counter looks at her very oddly...and that's ok...I was too excited to care!  

So, in a few days, Cheryl will get my mail art to her, and I hope that she will like hers as much as I like mine! (Or at least close to as much, because I REALLY like mine, so she'll have to pass out from excitement to be able to like what she's getting more...and while I hope she likes it, I don't want her to pass out...hehehe!)

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Cheryl!!!