Hello New Year, Nice to Meet You...

2014, you have started off so well!

For some reason, I've had the biggest sense of optimism and hope for 2014.  This is not like me.  Usually, a year is just another year, a man-made way of marking time.  They generally go by without too much attention from me.  I don't think in terms of such long spaces of time...I get from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute...years encompass too much for my tiny brain to comprehend.

The thought of 2014 has been different for me.  Maybe because of all the changes 2013 held, who knows...  But I've gotten the strangest feeling that this year is going to be epic...that HUGE positive things are going to happen.  What those things are, how they're going to come about, I have no clue...I just know I feel this optimism so strongly that it's a little eerie.  I joked at work on Monday that either good things were going to happen or I was going to get hit by a bus on the way home...because irony and morbid humor is how I roll...and since I didn't get hit by a bus so far, I guess we'll see how it all pans out...

I do know that it's already started off pretty well...so one day down, three hundred and sixty-four to go.  I got my Morning Pages (these are a suggestion from The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron) done first thing this morning.  A friend I met through KIOS blog-a-thon (Hi Kara!) mentioned a 30 day challenge she was participating in called Root: A 30 Day Journal Project (which you can learn more about HERE), and I jumped on the bandwagon.  As far as I can tell from Day 1, it seems like more of a writing project.  Which is totally cool with me, because the thought of doing Morning Pages on days when nothing particular is going on makes me think Morning Pages will become tedious...and then I will quit doing them.  So I figure for January I'll have the Root prompts to get me into Morning Pages and then I'll have developed the habit of writing again and will figure it out for myself...or at least will have till February to find more prompts.  I used the Root prompts today and got my Morning Pages done pretty quickly and probably could have kept going.

Today was also the first day of the Documented Life Project (you can read more about DL HERE), which I have been waiting ever so impatiently for.  I jumped on the ball and did the first of the weekly challenges today...I told you I was impatiently waiting!

The first DL challenge is "photograph, sketch, paint, or incorporate your front door".

I cheated a little bit.  I did take a picture of my door, but technically my house doesn't have a front door...both outside doors are on the sides of the house...so I just took a picture the door I use.  Here it is in all it's dirty, anti-climactic glory:

This picture made me realize I need to clean...I'll wait for a warmer day...  (that day is probably called never, but theoretically  it does seem like something to keep in mind for spring...)

I cheated a little bit more when it came to putting the prompt to use in my DL book, because of what the blurb underneath the main prompt (on the website I linked above) said:

"Through the artistic medium of your choice, show us a bit of where you live in the symbol of your door, entryway or porch.  Think a bit about how you can use your door to express your personality, your life, what you value."

And when I thought about it in those terms, I realized that my actual front door didn't symbolize anything about me...other than my lack of desire to clean.  So I started thinking about it in terms of what a front door as a symbol meant to me, which led me to think about a home, and what a home symbolizes to me.  And here's what I came up with:

The first spread in my Documented Life book...YAY!

In the end, the front door (although not MY front door...egads, that might be a little more telling than I realized at first...some kind of psychological slip...well that'll be over-analyzed later...) was a warm and welcoming thing...a symbol of the place where I belong.

"A place where I belong"

I added all these little bits (most of them from care packages sent by dear artistic friends) to the page today, and they  fit in quite nicely with the idea the prompt brought about.  The sticker in the top right corner says 'Create a life you love.'  and I thought that was a fitting sentiment for starting off the new year...  I also love the sticker on the bottom that says 'homemade', because it is in a homemade (ok, home-altered) journal, with the door on the page (symbolizing home), and in connection with creating a life you love, I read it as Home. Made...meaning that 'place where I belong' is something I have to put forth effort to find or make if I can't find what I'm looking for...

Andy (my husband) and I went to IHOP for dinner tonight, which was a nice surprise...we rarely go out to eat (drive-thru happens a lot, but sit down eating not so much), we even more rarely go to IHOP, and in the few instances where we do eat in the restaurant, we usually end up talking about it for weeks before it actually happens.  (We're weird...)  But today, Andy surprised me, and that was really awesome!  It may not seem like much, but after ten years of being married, silly things that don't usually happen somehow become bigger and more special.  Andy is a creature of habit more than anyone else I've ever met, so for him to be spontaneous...it was a big thing.  

On the way home, we stopped at Walmart, which I usually hate beyond hate, but I got myself some new Washi tape (8 rolls!  WooHoo!  It was on clearance...she said by way of justification...).  The purchase of said Washi, combined with Walmart not being jammed with people (for once!) made this particular trip...not horrible!  It also made me wonder if they have Walmart in other countries...I'm sure they do, but I wonder if they are the same as Walmart is here...and do people in other countries hate Walmart as much as I do?  Any thoughts on this are appreciated...

And then we came home and I started writing this, the first blog post of 2014!  So all in all, the new year has been pretty positive so far...maybe my completely irrational optimism isn't misplaced after all...

What about you?  Did you do anything special today?  Do you have your own irrational feelings about what 2014 is going to be like?  Or is it just another day and another year?  Do you hate Walmart too?  (If you don't hate Walmart, please explain why in detail...I need to be convinced...and it would take A LOT to convince me...)  Any fun new purchases you naughty things?

Begin Again

Well, as you can possibly tell, I did not get to all the KIOS blog-a-thon posts.  I'm calling it a half marathon, as I did get to day 16.  So that's something, right?  Now I am gracefully bowing out and lying down at the side of the track while someone pours Gatorade down my throat because I need the electrolytes...  

But just because I've been a lazy blogger doesn't mean I've been a lazy artist...I have been a busy bee in that area indeed.  I've been piecing things together a little at a time, working on a lot of different things at once, but  I do have two things (TWO THINGS!!!) finished and ready to show you today.

In a moment of insane boredom...coupled with the fact that I needed a new bill calendar for 2014 and the fact that I REALLY did not want to go to the store...I decided to upcycle an old calendar I had on hand and made this:

Goodbye boring blank cover.  Hello pretty girl face cover!

I'm so stinking happy with the way her face turned out!  Doesn't she look all fresh and innocent and ready to face a new day and a new life?  *squeal of delight*  Wow, how much do I wish my face could look like that!?! ...and that my attitude could support that face!  My attitude wants me to go back to bed and sleep for a few days...and my face has pillow wrinkles on it and eyes glazed over with the mild confusion of someone who just woke up...hehehe...  But in my dream world, this girl's face is my face, and my attitude is looking forward to good things!  Slowly, I am making that happen, but it seems like I'm taking my sweet time getting there.  Can't I just have inner peace now?  Ugh! :)

Inside page of new (old) calendar

I cut out A BUNCH of scrapbook paper squares and glued them down on the old pages...then the decided not to stick (probably because I was impatiently trying to work on all the pages at once instead of letting one page dry and then going on to the next), so I covered them over with a gesso wash to make them stick together.  That worked, but, in the end, I could have saved time by being patient and waiting for the current page to dry before doing the next page.  I have learned my lesson for next time...probably...

Depending on laziness level, I may actually have a do-over bill calendar.  As you can see in the top picture (at the edges of the calendar), this book is a little disheveled.  The pages kept trying to fall out, so I had to tape them together, and now the book is really thick and I just don't know if I'm happy with it as a calendar.  But don't fear, if I do end up making another, the one I showed you today will end up being an art journal, so it won't be wasted!  I like that cover girl WAY too much to toss her in the trash can!

Ooh!  Before I forget, I got a really nice thank you card from Jen (you can check out her blog HERE), who was my buddy I sent a care package to for the KIOS swap.  She sent such an AWESOME thank you package...now I feel like a wiener that I didn't send a thank you to Sara, who sent me my care package that had an inspiring collage and some beautiful origami paper cranes (which caused me to have insane jealousy, because her folds were so PERFECT!)!

Here's what Jen sent:

Such a nice surprise!  I can't tell you how much I love the art card at the bottom right...that image makes me SQUEAL WITH DELIGHT!!!  AAAH...LOVE IT!!!  

Thank you for the lovely thank you, Jen! <3

In other news, I started reading The Sound of Paper (now known as SoP for the purposes of not having to click the underline button...)by Julia Cameron (the author of The Artist's Way).  My sister gave me this book a LONG time ago, and I started reading it and doing the exercises in it...then got distracted by shiny things (as is my tendency) and never finished.  (On a side note, I am really good at getting to the half-way point and then walking away...semi guilt-free.)  

If you are familiar with Julia Cameron, you know about morning pages, which are three hand-written pages a day about whatever you feel like writing about (in case you aren't familiar with them).  I guess to get the creative juices flowing...which (I think) is the point of this book (SoP) and possibly all her books...I don't really know...that's just what I gather from this book so far.

Anyway, one of the first exercises in the book is to create an  intuitive collage, where you pull various images that 'speak to you' (aka grab your attention) for whatever reason, without questioning the images, and make a collage with them.  Then write about the collage/analyze the images you chose.  I decided to make my collage on the notebook I planned on using for morning pages, and here it is:

I used the before-I-glued image, because the glue I used makes the images look really dark in photos...it looks just like this in real life, but take a photo, and it ends up super dark.  Anyway, the after-glue version looks exactly the same, but with neatened edges...

Not to get into it too much, the thing that surprised me about the collage was all the flower images I picked.  Don't get me wrong, I like flowers.  But they don't tend to be a recurring theme in a lot of things that I make.  And the magazines I used to make the collage weren't just full of flowers...most of the images of flowers came from ads in the magazines.  To get all hippy-dippy on you for a minute, it was like I subconsciously sought out the flower images.  In my mind, flowers are connected to growing, so maybe it's a mental pat on the back from me to myself for personal growth.  Or it could just be that I like flowers...

I don't know if I'll end up sticking with Julia this time or not...she's got a lot of hippy dippy, which I tend to be resistant to.  Although, because of art journaling, I'm learning to accept hippy dippy as it applies to me.  AKA subdued hippy dippy...which is basically learning to understand the principal behind the fancy, flowery, over-the-top wording of said hippy dippery.  I do know that it takes me FOREVER to write three pages worth of long-hand, so logistically, I can't see me doing morning pages everyday...I just don't have time for that/question my willingness to make time for that...but I've done morning pages three times so far and have already had a bit of a mental breakthrough (which I will probably end up sharing in another post), so maybe there is something to be said for making time for morning pages after all...

Now I'm off to make some art...or do morning pages...or eat...meh, I'm off to do something...