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...

Root For You

I'm slowly but surely working my way through all the prompts I've missed during the craziness so far this year...  I'm trying, you know...I'm trying.

The first thing I've got to show you today is for week 6 (back in February) of JOURNAL 52, the prompt being "Windows":

"Losing love is like a window in your heart, everybody sees you're blown apart."
-Paul Simon

It's from the fantastic song "Graceland" by Paul Simon:

That song has some great lyrics, and I'll probably return to grab more of them in the future...

Then there's the DOCUMENED LIFE prompt (from the last week of January) "What Lies Beneath?", with the art challenge of "Under Paper" and here's what I ended up with:

"Flowers grow in all kinds of dirt."
Not one of my favorite pieces (me and painting flowers just don't get along for some reason!), but the sentiment's true!

And finally, there's week 7 of JOURNAL 52, which had the prompt of "Valentines" and here's what I made:

"I'm amorous but out of reach."
I'm not sure about this one...it actually looks much better in person, the lines aren't so noticeable and the colors are a little different looking as well...but on camera...well, it looks like this...meh...I don't know...

I got the line from this song, "Valentine" by Fiona Apple:

And used this painting by Raphaelle Peale as an inspiration:

"Still Life With Peach"

And that's a couple more towards catching up!

I've actually got more to share with you, it's just a matter of getting the blog posts typed up...which is time consuming if I write in my usual way...hence the super condensed version today.  But next time, I've got one with pictures that show the progress of the page, and coming up really soon, I'll share a piece that I am super proud of!  So just bear with me...I'm still trying to get the new balance of life down and I'm just not there yet.  But soon, I think...I know I've got a lot of lovely people rooting for me. <3

OK O'Keefe

This week's DOCUMENTED LIFE art challenge was The Color Wheel and the prompt was this quote from Georgia O'Keefe: "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way..."

Let  me just tell you, me and this spread fought really hard with each other, and either the spread won or it was a draw....  I just couldn't get inspired!  Don't get me wrong, I think the prompt and art challenge were GREAT...but for some reason, no matter how hard I racked my brain, I wasn't getting it!  

I ended up putting color on the page, thinking something would come to me once I did that:

I did actually really like the left page...the cool colors were really neat...but that left page...ugh...it just wasn't sitting right with me...

NOPE!  Still nothing...

Finally, I just scrolled around on an O'Keefe Pinterest search and found another quote of hers that I really liked:

"I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." -Georgia O'Keefe

I just thought this quote was a good reminder to be true to your own vision...whether in art or in life.

I suppose it might be odd to some, especially because we all love to be praised for a job well done, but I really agree with the idea of not letting ourselves be affected by flattery in the same way that we wouldn't want to be too affected by criticism.  Just like everything else in life, I think it's wise to take praise in moderation.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be taken note of when we deserve it...it thrills me to the core when that happens to me!  

Praise is kind of like a drug though...the more you get, the more you want...and that can lead to a problem because you can find yourself doing things you don't actually want to do or that you don't enjoy doing just for the pat on the back you'll get.

It's why I love O'Keefe's quote so much...the idea of 'settling it for yourself' so that YOU are pleased and free to do what YOU like and enjoy...that appeals to me so much!  What an excellent way to be able to live happily.  

I love my dogs very much, but I'm not like them...I don't need that pat on the back to know I did right.

So THAT'S WHY I didn't like you right page...

In the end, after looking at this spread for a good while, I finally realized what it was that kept throwing me off.

I should have flip flopped the colors on the right page...so the yellow and orange would be to the far right and the pink and red towards the middle...then it would have a pattern that progressed from the darkest to the lightest colors and my brain would have been much happier!  It would have been like the colors were leading you to the next page!  

Of course, I see that the way I did it now is also a pattern, with the darker colors on the outside and the lighter ones within, but I know I would have liked it better the other way...so that's why this is my OK O'Keefe spread and not my fantastic O'Keefe spread.  (On the positive side, OK O'Keefe is sort of word play, and I do enjoy that!)

Oh well, you live and you learn, right?

Luckily for me, there's always more paper and more opportunities to settle things for myself!

Freaking Magic

Let me just warn you now, there may be some ridiculous self-back patting in this post...if you're looking for humility, run...RUN...run far in the opposite direction of this post...because you will not find any of that nonsense here today!

I thoroughly blame Chelle over at JOURNAL 52, because this week's "Magic" prompt led me to create something I would probably never have done if it weren't part of my self-imposed goal to complete two year long projects (J52 and DLP)!  Here she is in all her glory:

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper." -W.B.Yeats

*Angels singing, birds dressing me in the morning, sunshine rays from heaven, etc.*

My husband that my husband keeps calling her Tinkerbell.  My fairy is NOT a Tinkerbell kind of girl.  She looks nothing like Tinkerbell!  Tinkerbell has nothing on my fairy!  Tinkerbell (and, by extension, my ridiculous husband) can bite me!  Tinkerbell!  TINKERBELL!!!  I never...

I suppose I can't be too mad, because Tinkerbell is probably the most famous fairy...I mean, come on, name another one...  But the fact that my awesome fairy got thrown in with the Disney lot was just too much for me to handle.

I mean, Tinkerbell's image is so white bread.  My fairy clearly...CLEARLY is anything but that.  I mean, she  completely rebels against fairy world standards by listening to punk rock and and restoring classic cars and having more than half a brain cell, giving her the ability to fully form human words, not just running around making twinkle noises and shaking her butt dust on children so that they can 'fly'...which, in my opinion, is just a metaphor for getting high...you know, you start out on fairy dust and then move on to hard drugs and before you know it, Wendy, John and poor little Michael are living in a cardboard box in an ally stealing car radios to support their habits!  And while my fairy listens to punk rock and supes up hot rods in her spare time, she's got morals and she would never be a butt dust dealer, despite the fact that she could be making bank and finally buy all those carburetors and vintage shifter knobs that she needs!  My fairy may have dirty fingernails and be able to quote Sex Pistols lyrics at the drop of a hat, but she would never sell smack to your kids.  And isn't that what we're all looking for in a good fairy?

Can you tell I'm a little excited by this page...what with the maniacally defensive rant due to my husband's besmirching?  

I can't help it...I love her so much.  I think she fully deserves to be maniacally defended...

Like I said before the rant, there's no way I would ever have drawn a fairy if it weren't for the J52 prompt, but now that she's drawn, I kind of what to put fairies on every single thing I ever do from now on...well, not just any fairy, but this fairy specifically.  *Sigh.*  She's just great...  And she's green...fantastically green...  And bright other colors...  *double sigh*  I really do enjoy her thoroughly.

Forgetting my (fabulous) fairy (for now), in my eyes, this time of year is the real magic in my world.  

I love fall, what with the leaves turning color and the crispness of it...and the way the light changes and makes everything seem a little better...  Maybe I've just accidentally breathed in some of that fairy butt dust...who knows...

All I know is that it's starting to get colder here and today as I drove around town, I suddenly wanted a gas station coffee, which should ONLY be drunk when it's cold outside.  I do love it when it's cold enough for gas station coffee...  It makes me happy and nostalgic...thinking of all the happy falls I've had thus far in life, and hoping that there will be many more extremely pleasant gas station coffee seasons to come...

What about you?  At the risk of sounding all hippy dippy, throw caution to the wind and tell me: what's magic in your world today?  

Shades

This week's DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) prompt is "Black and White".  Here's what I did:

Keeping it simple this week, I used my Inktense pencils is black, charcoal grey (which is a greenish grey) and bark (which, in my opinion, is a reddish grey).  I used two coats of gesso, but you can still see the up and down arrows that are on the SmashBook pages I worked on...it was totally unintentional, but I think it looks pretty cool...  

The SmashBook that I use for my DLP journal is getting so full!  You can kind of see in the picture above how rounded/humpish the left pages are!  I keep looking at how many weeks are left and wondering how I'm going to manage to work on them, especially the ones at the very end...it will be interesting!

"How can you say things are black and white?  All I see are shades of gray."

Two random thoughts: First, 'shades of gray' has nothing to do with that book...wouldn't want people thinking I'm a pervert...  (It may be true, I just don't want you to think it... haha).  And second, I didn't realize that you could spell it 'gray' or 'grey'...either one is correct.  I always thought it was one or the other, but apparently both are acceptable...how do you live for 31 years and not know that?

This girl is so wonky!  I think I usually manage to cover the wonk pretty well, because I can use color as a distraction, but this girl doesn't have that luxury!  She's not the best girl I've done, but I do like her eyes.  I think they convey what I was going for, but, of course, I know what I was going for, so that may be a bias opinion...

My mom came over yesterday and we got to hang out for a while.  I don't get to see her as much as I'd like to, even though we don't live that far away.  Some days, I really miss the way my family (my mom and my siblings) interact.  In my family, they know my kind of crazy...they're relatively accepting of it, and they can rein me in when I get too far to one extreme or the other.  I've been married for going on 11 years, and while there are good things about the dynamic my husband and I have, he's not always so accepting of my crazy.

For instance, in the past two years, we've had at least five arguments about the fact that I don't believe the moon landing was real.  Now, when I tell you this, I want to explain that I'm not spouting this off to every person I meet or making a huge stink on the internet about it or even mentioning it to anyone unless I'm specifically asked about it.  I don't think about it all the time or anything, but in a simple, passive way, I've just got doubts.

My husband CAN NOT accept that I think this.  That's why we've had arguments about it multiple times.  The most recent one was just last weekend.  I hate arguing...I really do try to avoid it.  This argument, the same one I've had five times, always begins with my husband 'starting a conversation' about it.  As soon as the words come out of his mouth, I know where it's going to lead.

The bad thing about debating something with me is that my brain works fast.  I will always have an immediate answer to whatever question a person will ask...I will always have a counter argument ready before the other person even finishes their sentence.  I'm not saying in any way, shape or form, that I'm smarter than anyone...just that my brain is always going 90 in a 35 zone and most other people tend to follow the speed limit.  Trust me when I say to you that, minus the rare occasion I'm arguing with someone, this racing brain I've got is way more of a curse than a benefit.

So no matter what my husband throws at me about my moon landing beliefs, I have an answer.  I have logical, plausible theories as to why the government would fake it and how/why they could continue to perpetuate the lie and blah, blah, blah.  I won't bore you with that, because it's not the point.

The thing that is bothering me about these arguments is this:  I don't ask anyone to think the way I think.  I accept that Andy believes what he believes and I don't force what I believe on him.  I will gladly listen to another person's opinion, weigh what they say, and consider, with an objective mind, the possibility that I could be wrong.  All I'm asking is to be shown the same respect.

But in this instance, it is not possible for him to give me the respect I give him.  He needs me to say I agree with him.  When he asks for my opinion, he doesn't want my opinion, he wants his opinion repeated back to him in my voice.  He can't accept that I think differently, because this is something that 'everyone knows'...(at one point, everyone 'knew' the earth was flat too...just saying...).

When my husband said that 'everyone knows' the moon landing happened, it made me realize that me not thinking it happened (or, more correctly, that I can accept that there may be an alternative possibility) is not what he has a problem with.  Despite the five arguments we've had about it, he doesn't care that about the moon landing at all.

What all those arguments were really about is the fact that I deviate from the established norm.  I'm not like other people and that's not ok in his eyes.  He's asking me to be something I'm not so that he can be comfortable.  It agitates him that I can't or won't do it.

The really stupid thing, in my eyes, is this: does it really matter?  I'm not hurting anyone, I'm not out there trying to rally people to my crazy conspiracy cause or anything.  So why does it bother him so much to know that on the inside I question things?

I think it's because people like black and white.  To some extent, we all like things to be one way or the other with certainty...without having to question it.  And some people, like my husband, need this certainty so much so that they can only acknowledge one thing as real and can't even consider another possibility.

And me, I'm at the opposite end of that.  Things are NEVER black and white for me.  Facts are not always facts.  Nothing is ever certain.  My mind doesn't let me have that.  The outcome of something isn't the end, it's a question.  I need the why behind the outcome.  I need to know what led to it and if some minor change had happened, would the outcome have been different.  And there are endless variations.  Life is a million shades of grey, but never, ever is it black and white...not even close.

It makes it difficult to live with me, I'm sure.  Really, I find myself wishing more and more that I could see things in such definite terms.  It's very tiring to never be sure of anything.  It hurts sometimes too.  For instance, I was writing in my journal recently and wrote "I don't want to be loved without question, I want to never question that I am loved."  What I mean by that is I don't want unconditional love...I don't want a love where no matter what horrible thing I do, another person can't help but love me.  If I repeatedly do a horrible thing, then I wouldn't want the other person to be stuck in loving me...I would want them to be free of me.  At the same time, I don't want to have to constantly question whether other people really love me.  If I'm a decent person (which I think I am) then I'd like to be able to believe I'm loved for the person that I am.  I don't like that my brain always wonders if it's true or not. I don't want to NEED to know why I'm loved.  But I do, not necessarily because I can't believe it, but because my mind wants the reasoning.  And this is just one example...everything I ever think is questioned, examined, turned over and over...it's just the way my brain works.

  Like I said, I think to some degree, my family gets it...and my husband to a lesser extent...and mostly, I try to not talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable.  It makes people look at me oddly.

The thing is, I'm not wrong.  In the same way that my husband is not wrong.  We all have the right to feel how we do about things.  We all have the right to accept things or to question them as we see fit.  No one should get to dictate another person's normal.

But, just like my husband, there are times that I don't understand how or why people think differently than I do.  I don't understand why my mind works the way that it does.  At the same time, it's often the only way that makes sense to me.  Why don't other people seem to need to know what's behind the curtain/what's underneath/what the motives are when that's such an important thing to me?  How do other people turn off their minds and stop thinking about things and why can't I do the same?

I wonder if anyone out there wishes their mind works like mine does?  I wish I was better at being decisive.  I wish that I was better at knowing with certainty that the way things are is the way things are.  I wonder if there's anyone out there who wishes they had a more open mind?  Maybe there's someone that can't see all the options and wishes they were more like me.  I wish I could find that person and switch with them for a while...just to know what it was like...maybe then I could appreciate my own crazy mind a little more...

Overkill...or Put Many Birds on It

This week's prompt for Documented Life (read more about DL HERE) was to incorporate a bird on your spread somehow.  And immediately, my mind went to this: 

HAHAHAHAHA!  That skit makes me laugh more than is necessary... 

And so in the spirit of that clip and birds everywhere, I made this spread:

"I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.  I want to be light and frolicsome.  I want to be improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing as though I had wings."
-Mary Oliver

I drew the birds...why have one bird when you can have four?  I'm the queen of overkill...on the page first (except the one at the top left, that one is a packing tape transfer) and then went looking for a quote to fill in the empty spaces.  I really like the quote that I picked, and, maybe it's just me, but I see the traits mentioned in the quote in the birds next to them...like the top left bird looks 'dangerous and noble', the bottom one looks 'light and frolicsome', etc....that was totally unplanned!  I think sometimes my brain formulates plans in the dark recesses and doesn't let me in on it till after the plan is carried out...I call them serendipity, but secretly my brain is toiling away to make those moments happen!  

On a side note, I love that paper on the left page...those zinnias are awesome and I couldn't bear to cover them over too much!  That was one of the pages I added to my SmashBook to make it have enough for 52 spreads...good choice, I think! *pats self on back*

I love that quote from Mary Oliver...one day I am going to do a page about her poem "The Journey"...I LOVE that poem...  My friend Pamikins was right, my pages are never done (in my eyes anyway) until I put words on them!

In other news, I got a new phone with a better camera than my last phone...I was so excited when I saw that picture because the colors are very true and it's so crisp!  I had a problem with color accuracy on my last phone, and then towards the end it started to take hazy looking pictures.  So hooray for the new phone and it's better camera!!!

Now I'm off for the night...possibly to put birds on more things... :)

The Size And Shape - Why I Make Art

The prompt for this week's Journal 52 (HERE) page was "create art for a cause", and asked 'Why do you make art?' or 'create a page for a cause you're passionate about'.

For most of my life, I was a person who didn't have any emotions...or at least a person who denied them to an extreme.  One day, seemingly out of nowhere, that changed for me.  Suddenly, I had all these emotions that were completely out of control.  For most people, you learn as a child how to keep a handle on your emotions...but I didn't have any practice doing that.  I had no idea how to stop myself from feeling certain ways.  I didn't know how to make them be quiet...to be in the back of my mind.  So when I had an extremely hard thing to deal with, the suicide of my very dear friend, I was pretty much at my wits end.  It was all I could think about.  It was all I could talk about.  It was the only thing that ever happened and nothing else mattered.  I couldn't function.  I couldn't live my life without feeling guilt and sadness to the point where I was really close to giving up.  It was as if they closed the casket on me the day he died.  And it was at this super desperate point that I found art.  I thought maybe it would just be a welcome distraction, but it turned out to be so so much more than that.

At first, I think I just wanted to make pretty pictures...to make things 'correctly'...so I practiced my fingers to the bone.  And then I practiced some more (and continue to practice...).  And I found out that I could stop my brain from spiraling, if only for the time I spent practicing...

And one day, it came to me...the phrase is 'art journal'...I was doing the art end, sure...but where was the journal part?  I was making pretty pictures, but they had very little meaning for me personally.  So I made it my goal to put myself in the page, so to speak.  I didn't want to make generic pretty pictures anymore.  I wanted to make my pictures.  Whether they were pretty or not, didn't matter as much...I wanted someone to be able to look at my pages and get an idea of who I was and how I felt.

The hard part about it was that I wasn't really sure who I was...and the things that I felt were so tightly bottled up in me that they mashed into one big, messy glob.  I couldn't control my feelings, and I had a really hard time separating one from another.  So, the only thing I could think of was to start with what I knew.  And I knew I was mourning the loss of my friend...it was the only thing I knew for sure...so I started with that.

Once I started to put my true feelings on the page, I found that they got out of my head...not just while I was creating the page, but afterwards too.  When I put them on the page, I could look at my thoughts, understand what they were and what was behind them...and I started to feel like they were real and valid...that my thoughts mattered, how I felt mattered.  Not only that, but I could see that this feeling was different from that feeling...they were not all connected together in an insurmountable mass.  And when I realized that, it was suddenly possible to change... to not be such a helpless mess!  I could look at what I'd done on the spread, understand what it meant and choose to work to make things different.

All that didn't happen overnight...but it did happen.

I've changed.  I'm not the same person I was when I first picked up that pencil to make art.  That girl was sad and scared and on the verge of insanity or worse.  She didn't know who she was and didn't think she was worth the knowledge.  Art made me aware of myself.  Not in an egotistical way, but in a way where I actually matter.  I learned that I have a heart and art showed me that my heart doesn't have to beat so loud that it drowns everything else out.  Art showed me that it's ok to 'wear your sorrow, but come morning, change your clothes'...in other words, feel what you feel but don't let yourself be consumed by it.  That's huge.

It's not only internal changes that have been happening for me.  This feeling of being in control has changed my interactions with other people too.  I saw that what I was putting out into the world was not the person I really was.  Making art helped me figure out who I am and that all those weird little random bits that make me who I am are totally ok.  I'd always felt like such a weirdo...that I couldn't be the real me, because no one would like me then.  Art made me realize that no one could really love me if I didn't let them know the real me.  Through the art, I've gotten to learn who I am, who I really am (because I honestly didn't know).  I find that people respond to me differently, because I am different now.  And, even better than that, I no longer worry myself sick over whether people like me or not...because I like me...and that's way more important than anyone else's opinion on the matter...

If you would have told me, when I first started making art, that all this would happen just because I picked up a pencil or a paintbrush or some water soluble crayons, I never would have believed you.  But it has! Every little mark I made on the page has moved me forward and I feel like...while I'm still moving forward, still learning and growing and changing...I'm finally at a place of some kind of normalcy and not so completely estranged from everyone and everything around me.  I finally feel connections: to myself, to my emotions and thoughts, and to other people as well.

For me, the reason behind why I create art makes art a cause that I am passionate about.  If you knew me before I started creating pages and spreads,  if you knew how much those little marks on the page changed me for the better, then you'd know that it could do the same for anyone.  It healed me more than any medicine I've ever heard of.  It gave me more knowledge of myself and other human beings than any doctor or philosopher ever could.  It connected me to the world around me better than any other meditative practice I've tried.  I could talk about it all day, everyday, to anyone who would listen.  It sounds melodramatic to say it, but art saved my life and gave me myself.  All that from some marks on a page...

"It's so much bigger than I thought and it just keeps growing."

Color Scheming and Keeping On Track

Last week for Journal 52, the prompt was "Color Inspiration" (read more about J52 HERE).

I may have mentioned it before, but I have an intense love of plates (and bowls and cutlery...a lot of kitchen/dining related things appeal to me, I guess)...in a perfect world, I'd have a huge collection of them in every pattern that catches my eye and I'd be happy as a clam.  I'd have one of each and nothing would match and it would be pure utopia for me.  I think I must have inherited this love from my grandma, who had my own personal paradise in her kitchen cabinets...although I think part of her collection was earned honestly: years of sets of plates and many children in her house equaling a lot of breakage...I was just the enthralled observer of the survivors.  Either way, I can remember sitting down at the table hoping I'd get a certain plate...or, even better, opening up the cupboard door and getting to pick which one I wanted.  I still do this at my house, and my husband continually questions why I just can't take a plate off the top of the stack like a normal person...  I can't help it...I love what I love...

Anyway, since this isn't a perfect world, I don't have space for a huge collection of plates...so I have to limit myself to a few REALLY special pieces...the ones that my eyes never want to look away from.  So for this week's J52 page, I chose one of my absolute favorite plates:

My awesome Merit saucer/plate inspiration piece...Isn't it GORGEOUS???
I would totally love to have this tattooed on me somewhere...I love it beyond words!

I really love the pale yellow of the background along with the bright juicy colors in the flower...it just floats my boat!  

I also love the design...the composition and the flower itself...SO awesome!

So even though the prompt was color inspiration...I took it further and just tried to recreate the plate in page form:

YAY!  

Sorry for the dark pictures...I took the picture of the plate during the day (so I'd have a reference photo) and it came out really true to color.  The journal page pictures happened at night, so the colors in the photos are way off what's really on the page (especially the yellow background...it's pale yellow in real life).  Thank goodness we're on the uphill swing with Daylight Savings happening.  I hate losing an hour's sleep, but I do appreciate more daytime hours happening so that I can take better pictures!

"It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all it's tainted glory and still love it."
- Oscar Wilde

I'm super happy with the drawing of the flower!  Full disclosure...I originally was going to write the quote in that gray color, but my brain forgot how to spell (and you can't erase that marker, darn it!) so I scribbled over my mistake with the marker and just wrote over that (more carefully) with the white pen.  It was a happy accident for me, because I really like the way that dreary gray block on the pretty page ties in with the 'tainted glory' part of the quote!

At some point, I will probably go back and add a page to my J52 journal using only these COLORS as inspiration...because otherwise I'll feel like I 'didn't do it right' and it will bother me until I do...I know, I know...I have issues...  On the positive side, I really do love that color palette, so I think I'll be glad to use it again!

In awkward segway news, I had a hectic week at work, so I actually had this page finished but didn't have time to post!  That's working way too hard in my opinion!!!  I'm going to have to figure out where I can create some time in my life, because this whole working around work thing is just not working for me!

Do you have any ideas on ways to find time?  I feel a little guilty asking this question because, mostly, I go to work, come home, and do art...really the only solution is to become independently wealthy, so if I could just win the lottery or something, that would be great...BUT I really would like to hear any suggestions you have about finding time!  I think it's a topic that a lot of people think about, so maybe you have some awesome ideas about it that can help.  

One thing I think about...notice I said think about, not do...is to keep a schedule (this was actually one of my 'new year's resolutions'...going along with my word of the year: condition)...  I don't have a lot of outside commitments, other than work, but what if I made myself stick to an at-home schedule?  Part of me thinks this would be good, because I feel like I'd get more done if I looked at my free time like I look at my work time...

But a bigger (or at least a more vocal) part of me thinks that I would drive myself crazy trying to stick to a schedule...I've never been much of a plan person...I've been much more of a wing it/see what I feel like doing at the time person.  But I also didn't used to be much of a stick-with-it / routine type of person, and I am finding that I am sticking with art journaling, doing my J52 and DL spreads every week with a vengeance and at work, if I don't do things in the order I usually do, my whole day is thrown into chaos.  What's the deal with that???  Am I really changing so much?  Is 30 year old me going to be that much different than me in my 20's?  Whoa, man, I'm freaking me out a little!

I guess, WAY deep down inside, I know the only solution is to try the schedule thing and see how it works...  scary, I know.  But nothing changes unless we do, right?  Ok, ok, I'll just do it...quit nagging me!  Sheesh!  I'm sure I'll let you know how it goes for me...because otherwise, you might be tempted to doubt my commitment and then where would we be? :)

A Gigantic Thank You or In Between Tissues

Last time, I think I mentioned that my husband gave me a cold, but that I didn't feel that bad.  Why do I always have to tempt fate?  The next day I woke up feeling horrible and wimpy.  Ugh.

So I got a little off track with my Morning Pages, but I'm going to play catch-up today and make it all better.  Before I do that, I'll work on my Journal 52 spread, which is not done either...but will be by the end of the day.

But I wasn't a complete slacker...oh no!  I farted around with some just-for-fun stuff instead...

Still trying to use up the less-than-desirable-papered journals, I made this owl and the pussy cat spread, mostly with Inktense pencils.  I thought the outstretched wings on the owl made him look like he was saying 'the fish was this BIG'...so I added that bit to the journaling.

My poor Gregg journal has been sorely neglected for far too long, so I made a double page spread in him...I got the idea for this spread from one of the Root prompts...basically 'what would your inner wise woman say?'  Apparently mine would quote Gloria Steinem: "Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person."  My inner wise woman would tell me that in order for change to happen, you have to change first...and that I should continue my quest to be the right person.  This spread is Inktense pencils, Pitt Artist Big Brush pens and washi tape.

Partway through the week, when I was my sickliest and wimpiest, I wanted to create but nothing good was happening...no inspiration at all.  So I decided to try somethings I don't usually do, like use stencils with acrylic paint and see what happened.  Not my favorite page by far, but it got the creative juices flowing...and led me to the idea of a journal specifically for doing things differently, or for when I don't know what to do.  I think it will be known as my Inspirationless Journal...as a play on Donna Downey's beautiful Inspiration Journals.  I had a little binder style scrapbook lying around that was a perfect place to keep such imperfect messes...

This page happened next, also in my new Inspirationless Journal, and I was much happier with the results of playing around this time.  The journaling part says "The heart keeps on beating and constantly reaching for something worth holding onto, something worth going through the thing that we go through." which is a line from a poem which you can read HERE in its entirety.

Then there's this face...or start of a face.  I tried something different for her eyes, and I really like how they came out...now if I can just convince myself to go ahead and keep working on her.  Mostly, I just look at this page and say 'your eyes...your special eyes...' over and over.

And lastly, there's this girl, done in Aquamarkers...she's very...I don't know...cartoony or something...she kind of looks like a muppet to me.  I waver between liking her and feeling meh about her...but like the cheek shading...

Most importantly of all, I want to say a BIG HUGE GIGANTIC ENORMOUS THANK YOU!!! to Jackie, my honey, for the two (TWO!!!) humongous (HUMONGOUS!!!) care packages she sent me!  My kitchen table was literally overflowing with goodies!  Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Jackie!!!  There is so much good fun stuff that I just can't wait to get playing and arting with!  Squeal of delight!  SQUEAL OF DELIGHT!  Thank you so much! <3<3<3  You made me go from a sickly, wimpy, whiny mess to a shrieking, jumping, ball of happiness in 2.2 seconds!  Thank you.  :)

And on that EXTRA happy note, I am off to finish my Journal 52 page, get caught up on my Morning Pages, and then have a good play with my new presents!

Things of Beauty and Intrigue

I've got a quick page to show you today...

She reminds me of Forest Whitaker...hehehe...  Despite her ptosis (aka lazy eye), I like her quite a lot...especially that head-wrap thing she's got going on...I was inspired by the scrapbook paper (glued at top) for the color scheme, and I'm really happy with how that came together as well.

The lyrics on the page are from "Ugly" by Cold (I love these guys so much...):

I've been on a roll with cleaning and doing laundry and mundane household things since early this morning...I was taking care of business...with speed and agility.  Usually I use my speed and agility to run away from housework, but today I was a responsible adult and did the boring stuff.  Now I'm off to eat midnight Taco Bell as a reward for all my hard work today...

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...

Ten

For more info, click Here

Today's KIOS prompt is 

Tell Us 10 Things About You.

So, here we go...

I love words.  I don't read as much as I used to, but reading and writing were my first loves.  I even have a poetry blog, which I haven't updated in a LONG time.  (I'm a binge poet...nothing, nothing, nothing and then a solid month of writing.)  I used to write poetry to work through emotional stuff, but I think my art journals are filling that void now.  Like I said, I haven't put up anything new for a while, but you can, if you are so inclined, read my poetry HERE.  ...some of them are not too shabby!  

I have a ridiculous fear of space aliens.  The worst part is that I don't even think they're real.  But I am freaked out by them to an insane degree.  I'm not scared of snakes, spiders, axe murderers...you know, things that exist in reality and could, in theory, actually hurt/kill me...but show me a picture of a little green man and I am so unnerved about the whole thing that I will make the dog follow me around the house for a week straight (for protection purposes...).  I understand that this is a completely irrational fear, but I am nevertheless getting the heebie jeebies just talking about them.

I've talked a lot about my love for and collection of random weird things, but I also have a deep love of plates and dishes and the like.  I think I inherited this love from my grandma, who had a huge amount of mismatched dishes in her cabinets.  When I find a cool plate, I HAVE to buy it!  None of my dishes match, and I hope they never do!

Semi-related to number 3, one of my most prized possessions is an old green crock pot that was my mom's... (she might want to have it back, but it ain't gonna happen!)  It's been used to hold wood spoons and spatulas and whisks since before I was born, and that's the place of honor it holds in my house as well.  If my house ever catches fire, that crock pot would be what I grabbed on my way out the door.

My family moved a lot when I was growing up.  If need be (and you could entertain my husband for while I was doing it...he'd just get in the way), I could have my entire house full of stuff packed up and be on the road in one day.  I used to take pride in the fact that everything I owned except my bed could fit into three Rubbermaid totes.  Since I've gotten married, that's no longer true (because my husband is the king of all hoarders...and to a lesser extent because I have discovered art supplies...), but I could still pack up and leave in 24 hours or less.

I haven't bought clothes in about three years.  And if we're talking major clothing purchases, we could add at least another three years to that.  I hate going shopping (for anything except art supplies) and I always feel like buying clothes is wasting money.  Although I'm going to have to cave in and do it soon...I'm more than a little threadbare, and no one wants me to become a nudist.  They'd frown on that at work for sure.

I have two tattoos, a turtle on my back and rats around my ankle.  The turtle is for my mom (that's what she's called me ever since I was a little kid) and the rats are for my husband (Rat was his nickname when I met him...although I never called him that...I call him, among other things, Stink Face.  It is a term of endearment in my house.)  People always think the rats are some variation of Dead Head Bears, maybe because they are each a different color...but that is in no way true.  I just wanted a bunch of bright colors.  Also in relation to tattoos, I would get more of them if it weren't for my husband, who says two is more than enough.  (But I bet I end up with at least one more...eventually.)

I hate sauerkraut.  I don't even want to be near it, that's how much I hate it.  If I can smell it or if a piece gets on my skin (the rest of my family loves it and I would have to wash dishes sometimes when they made it...ugh...), I start dry heaving.  I hate it so much that if I was starving and it came down to eating sauerkraut or maggots, I would eat the maggots.  I'm not joking.  I wouldn't even have to think twice.  

I don't like/know how to respond when people compliment me about my looks, specifically in person.  Honestly, I find myself waiting for the punch line when someone compliments me.  And it makes me feel super awkward.  You'd think it would be easy to just accept a compliment with a 'Thank you!' and be on my way...but it's not for me.  I don't think I'm a hideous beast monster or anything, but I'm also realistic about my looks...and I'd much rather be complimented about something I have control over, like the fact that I am hilarious or smart or kind or that my shirt is cool.  Aside from making sure there's no food smeared on my face and no boogers are hanging out of my nose, I have very little control over my face...so when someone compliments me, I just pretend they're saying "Good job at showering today."  ...because I can totally say thank you to that...

You probably know this one by now, but I love art.  I love my art journals.  I cherish my art supplies.  I honestly think that art has, in some ways, saved my life.  

I don't show my emotions.  For a long time, I was convinced I didn't even have them.  If you've ever known someone who is bipolar, you know that their mood will swing from one extreme to another.  I used to be like that, except for I was always on the upswing...always happy...to a disturbing degree.  You'd think that it's a good thing to always be happy, but there are times in life that you should feel sadness or anger or love even.  I didn't.  I understood those things in theory, but didn't feel them myself.  

One day, I met a man who made me feel love very strongly...something that I had not felt before...instead of just feigning it, I actually felt it.  Not going into too much detail, I got to have him in my life for several years, and then he killed himself.  When that happened, I was crushed.  That's a normal reaction.  But for me, because I didn't have experience dealing with sadness, it was more than even being crushed.  The only thing that I can try to compare it to is a roller coaster with a very large drop.  One minute you're at the peak, and the next minute you are hurtling downward so fast and then you get to a point where you level out and the ride's over.  But in my case, I couldn't stop the going downhill part...I crashed right through the ground and kept going down, down, down.  When he died, it was like everything that had ever happened to me in my life, all the things that I never felt emotion about before, suddenly filled my brain.  I don't think that the people around me knew the extent of what was happening.  They knew it was bad of course, but not how bad it really was.  

I had so much going on internally that I didn't know how to cope with.  Things would circle around and around in my head and I didn't know how to make them stop.  Looking back, I was probably on the road to going crazy...and not the fun kind of crazy.  I couldn't separate the death of my friend, which was bad enough on it's own, from childhood abuse, or from arguments that had happened years before, or from feelings of rejection and worthlessness, or even from happy things like love and other good things that I never fully understood.  I was a mess, and I felt like I couldn't even let myself show it to anyone, let alone ask for help.

And that's when I discovered art...or art as it applied to me.  

And, slowly, I learned that I could put each thought in my head onto paper, and it actually let my brain have some peace.  I could look at each thing individually and analyze it, understand it, work through it.  Art let me breathe again.

And so my art might not be the most beautiful or the most impressive or the most technically correct out there...but it's important to me.  

In the beginning, it was a way to have a space to work things out.  It still is.  But I also found out along the way that art is fun.  I got better at making 'pretty' things too...cause trust me, there were a whole lot of extremely ugly pages that happened (there still are sometimes!)  I practice every day, both at making better art, and at dealing with emotions in a healthy, (my version of) normal way.

So when you look at the bunny below, know that he is just a meaningless bunny...

...but that he's also the product of a lot of personal growth and a sign of better mental health...he's a bit of a celebration rabbit, I suppose, and a bit of a life saver.