Gratitude

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Eyes and the Glad Game

Late to the game again!  Tsk, tsk!  I am wagging my finger at myself in disgust!  I have been distracted by the day-to-days yet again, and I have no good reason.  Plenty of excuses...but no good reason...

One semi-decent excuse is getting caught up in the free tutorial videos over at the DERWENT WEBSITE.  Thanks to Michelle from INSPIRATION EVERYWHERE for the heads up about those...  As a side note, I just love the name of her blog!

Derwent also has a 'kids' related portion of their site called FLIP! and it has some video tutorials as well.  I really like looking at things geared towards children, because of how well they break the information down.  Sometimes videos directed at adults assume you know things that you actually don't, whereas those that were made "for kids" give you much more basic-but-thorough instruction...plus, they tend to be more concise, probably because kids aren't known for having great attention spans.  I have to say, when I first started out making art, my art maven/older sister told me that was the case and I...disregarded...that information for a while.  Huge error on my part!  I admit my wrongness wholeheartedly!

I'm going to share some of the art I made so far with the Derwent tutorials in a later post, but today, I have my Journal 52 (J52) and Documented Life Project (DLP) art for last week.

For J52, the prompt was "Travel", and you can read more about it HERE.  This is what I made:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
-Proust

I am pretty excited over that wide-eyed girl...I think she goes so well with the quote...it makes me ridiculously happy...  I really enjoy it when you find just the right words for your project!

FYI, in case it's ever a question on Jeopardy, I didn't start out with the plan of having a black background...there was an incident involving a crumb from a black oil pastel that was stuck to my hand...  And since there was little hope of removing the mark it made on the page, and because I wanted to stick with water-soluble media on this page, I just pulled out my black Neocolor II and went for black.  Luckily, I had a white ink pad that was still surprisingly juicy after several years of never being touched...and it all worked out well in the end!

The other thing I have to share is my DLP spread, which you can find out more info about HERE.  The prompt was to "Write what you are grateful for each day this week." and here's my list:

"Come on Pollyanna...Let's play the glad game."

I started out feeling a little "Meh..." about this spread, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. I don't think it looks very me...I must have been channeling someone else's muse that day or something!  The colors in the background are not my usual fare.  I used a set of cheap tube watercolors that I don't pull out very often.  I think they will be making a much more regular appearance on my studio desk, because I find them to be quite interesting colors...  Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that...so it's possible you will never see them again, so perhaps we should take a moment to enjoy them while we can! :)  

Yesterday, I noticed I've been having an unintentional run of purple in my DLP journal...it even made an appearance in this spread!  Not that there's anything wrong with purple, but it's kind of odd for me to have a marathon of it without planning to, right?

See that little heart at the top of the left page?  My husband, the lovely stink that he is, found that in the parking lot of his job and brought it home to me!  Now some women would be thoroughly disturbed at the fact that their husband brought home 'trash' from a parking lot...but as artists, I think we all know what a sweet gesture that was!  Add to that the fact that my husband is mildly afraid of germs, and you see what a grand gesture it actually was.  I'll have to add that to my list for the Glad Game!  A Glad Game bonus, if you will...

What about you?  Do you have something glad to share?  I'd love to hear about it!

Recovering Girl

Oh, my darling peoples, I don't know what I'd do without you.  Your kind words never fail to make me feel better.  I love you all for taking the time to leave comments, most especially when I'm feeling tender (like I have been lately).  Your good words are helping me get through my rough patches and I wish I could express just how much that means to me...much more than even a blabber mouth like me can say.

To be truthful, I'm still feeling tender.  Someone at work today asked if I was feeling ok because I was so pale.  I love my emotions (at last), but they seem to be taking a toll on me.  I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving because I'll get a four-day weekend...I'm so, so ready for a four-day weekend.  I plan to sleep...and possibly make homemade sugar cookies with colorful icing...and then eat all of said sugar cookies by myself...but I'm also lazy, so maybe just the sleep part will prevail.  Sleep and art...yeah, that sounds like a winner...

I made another page in my Gregg journal.  At first I thought it was another depressing one...but I was staring at it for a while this morning and decided that it's actually more encouraging than I first gave it credit for:

She's more than just an injured girl.

I realized that there are a lot of things in this spread that look hopeful to me...subconscious hope is happening.  I realized that I painted the background green...green is my favorite color...I wouldn't put so much blatant green into something sad, because green is a happy color for me.  Then the flowers...stylized flowers in full bloom...another happy thing for me.  And even though the poor girl has some kind of brain injury, it's being treated.  She doesn't have some horrible, gaping wound (I don't know that I could draw a horrible, gaping wound...even if I wanted to...), she's starting to heal.

Looking at this recovering girl, I started thinking about all the things in my life I'm happy about.  I blame Deborah Weber for making me remember to be glad about good things...she's spending the month doing an abecedarium (which is a big word for an alphabetical list...I love big words...) on different aspects of gratitude.  You can read her blog HERE.  

While I mentally fight with myself about using the word "gratitude" (it's a long story), I have no qualms about taking the time to think about things in my life that I feel happy to experience.  Since I've felt so negative lately, I thought maybe it would be good to share a few of the positives too...gotta make sure to keep the balance, right?

Today's happy thoughts:

• Sugar cookies with colorful icing...ok, delicious cookies in general...
• which leads me to delicious food in general...Sunday, my husband and I made Oven Stew...I'm glad about Oven Stew...I'd be even more glad if there had been left-overs...but I digress...
• Big, fancy words...
• I'm glad to have art and other creative things in my life...that's an every single day glad thing for me.
• I'm happy to have met wonderful and supportive people who share my love of creative things.
• I'm glad to have the internet...which is really a creative tool for me...it gives me inspiration from others, lets me find out how to do things (tutorials/patterns), lets me veg out when I need to...let's me share my art and my words with people who care about the same things...people who make me feel special...I really love the internet...
• I'm glad to have four-day weekends...especially now that I have a job that actually pays me for them!
• I'm really happy that some stranger left a really great dog at my house for no reason...Fusco (or as he is affectionately known now Fuss-butt) is too awesome...I'll never understand why they left him, but I'll always be happy that they did.
• I'm happy about milk.  I don't know what it is with me recently, but I've been drinking milk like nobody's business.  I swear I could drink my weight in milk every day if I didn't restrain myself...right now I'm going through a gallon every two-three days.  I don't know why I want it so bad, but egads, am I happy about milk right now.
• I'm happy I've felt truly loved by good people, in the past and currently.
• I'm happy about music...that's another every day happy thing...
• I'm glad I've got my brain...it's weird and random, completely fun and completely terrifying...(occasionally those two things at the same time!)...I like that I don't always think how other people think.

That's not the whole list, but it's a good start for sure...I guess another thing I should add to the list is that I'm happy I have so many things to be genuinely happy about....yes, I really am GENUINELY happy about milk right now!  Despite the fact that I'm tender and sad and angry, I can still see so many positives.  It's not all doom and gloom.  Sure there's some mushy stuff rolling around in my brain, but it's got a lot of competition from bright, shiny, fantastic things, little things and big things too.  

What about you?  What are you happy to have in your life today?