Starting To Change

It's been forever, hasn't it?  

It sure seems like it!

I've been adjusting (more on that later) and I actually managed to do a couple of art journal pages, so I thought I'd share them with you...as proof that I'm not dead and all that...

The first page is for JOURNAL 52...week 5...the television prompt, posted way back in January...yes, I am that behind...shame of shames!

"You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around."  -Kathleen Edwards

What does that page have to do with TV you ask?  The words are from this song by Kathleen Edwards, called "Six O'Clock News":

I am not a TV watcher by nature...even when I do, I've got to do something else while I watch...and I wasn't really feeling the TV prompt...until I remembered that song and the line "You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around."  Which I really like and had more to do with where I'm at right now than any other TV related thing, so I just went with it.

And then there's the DOCUMENTED LIFE spread...also from way back in January...I feel so behind!  (Probably because I AM THAT BEHIND!)  The Art Challenge for this spread was "writing" and the Journal Prompt was "words with friends" and here's what I came up with:

You can't see it very much, but I used writing as my beginning layer...it only shows through in a few places.

I got the words on this page from this song, "Time to Leave" by Melissa Ferrick:

And I think they are some wise words indeed:

"You can't fix anyone else, babe."

"Being a friend means knowing when it's time to leave"

Aside from getting a little art journaling in, KAT MCNALLY'S APRIL MOON (still time to join!) has started, and I've been pondering the prompts in my head...she's got such a knack for helping you get to the meat of things, instead of just fluttering on the surface...she just asks the right questions, I guess.  

Kat's Reverb14 prompts last year had a very profound affect on me.  In fact, they are part of the answer to the first April Moon prompt: 

"That's when I knew that this chapter of my life had ended.  And now I was free to..." 

The thought of leaving my husband is something that had occurred to me many times...but there was always a reason not to...me talking myself out of it with one thing or another.  Because it's wasn't something to do lightly.  So I stayed and things just kept piling up and piling up and I stayed and things piled.  And for years of my life, I waited and hoped things would change.  But they didn't change.  And so I decided that maybe if I changed, then it would be an inspiration to others and then they would change too.  But that's not what happened.

There was a point last year, during Reverb14, where I was sitting there typing my answer to one of the prompts and I thought to myself 'I don't want to live this life'.  I was so, so tired of trying and trying and having nothing to show for it.  I'd worked hard to make things better...but I was the only one who was changing...everything around me stayed very much the same...despite my needing it to be otherwise...despite my pleas for something/anything to be different.  

And something in me just snapped...I knew that nothing was ever going to change.  I knew that I was always going to live this same sad existence every day and have that for my life.  And I knew that I did not want to live that life forever.  There had been so much opportunity for things to have ended differently between my husband (Andy) and myself, but Andy was comfortable with the way things were...he didn't want anything to be different, and he didn't seem to care very much about what I wanted. This is not different from the entirety of my marriage...the difference is that I was not ok with it anymore, and I was not willing to keep trying.  He made his choice, and I'm not mad about it...I just wasn't going to let him make my choices anymore.  I needed things to be different and I wasn't going to be the only one compromising any more.  One person can't hold up the world.

And so I left, and I've been staying with my mom since January.  And in some ways, I feel in transition still...not settled...because this is not the end of the line for me...I will get my own place eventually and have my own space and take care of myself completely by myself...and so as I sit here and type away on mom's computer, in mom's house, I feel like a bit of a transient.  

But the thing is, I know now that I am free to do things differently.  That I won't always have this feeling of unrest...that I will find a place to put down roots.  I don't have to do the same things I've always done.  I can make another choice.  I can forge my own path.  And I'm working on it.

And that leads me to the second prompt for April Moon:

 "Knowing what I know now, I would tell my ten-years-ago self:"

Not to damn wait.  

Ten years ago, I was a year and a half into my marriage, and had pretty well already started to have doubts about it.  Instead of listening to my gut, I listened to other people.  People, who despite having the best of intentions, didn't really have the right to decide what I should do.  I chose to listen to them, and I lost a lot of time and opportunities.

I would tell my former self to get it together...pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get to it.  Nobody in life is going to hand you what you want, and you don't get anything by sitting there wishing for it.  If you want it, go work for it.  Don't let anybody tell you who you are and don't let anybody guilt you into being something that you don't want to be.

I'd tell her the same thing I am telling myself today:  Figure out what it is that you want and go get it.  Knuckle down, quit your whining and make things happen.  You don't get to blame anyone else ever again.  Whatever you end up with, good or bad, is because of your actions or lack of them, so whatever choice you make, you better be ready to make it work.

And on that forceful note, I'm done for today...

I'll leave you with some cuteness...Frida the adorable (and growing like a weed) puppy dog:

Had to trick her with treats next to the camera so as to get her to stay still...

...the paw on the leg is the last ditch effort at patience...half a second after I snapped this pic, she jumped up, head-butted me and stole the treat...

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."

Journal 52, Week 3-You Make Me Smile

I'm a little behind on posting my week 3 page for Journal 52 (or J52, which you can read more about HERE), but I actually got it done on time.  I just had a not very good weekend and didn't take the time to post.  But there will be more about that in this week's Documented Life pages, and for right now, I need something happy to get me off to work today.

For week 3 of J52, the prompt was "You make me smile." and it's about the 'quirky, silly, happy things that make you smile'.  Mine has a double meaning, which I'm always a fan of:

"Every time I find your face it always makes me smile!"
Prismacolors, Aquamarkers, Promarkers, Dylusions,  Bic 537R pen (aka the best writing pen ever...I used it for the writing and those crazy eyelashes)

As soon as I read the prompt, I knew I was going to be drawing a girl with a smiling face.  It's one of the how-to videos included in Jane Davenport's (JD for short) Supplies Me class that I'm taking, so I knew I wanted the practice.  I just had to figure out why the girl was going to be smiling...what makes me smile?

Not to make you think that JD is my new art idol or anything (although her work is beautiful and I am loving her classes...), but I do find that she has interesting side thoughts that pop out of her from time to time.  I imagine watching one of JD's videos is a bit like listening to me talk (except for I don't have an awesome Australian accent), because she rambles on and on, goes off on tangents, and is so silly.  But if you listen closely, some of her silliness makes a lot of sense!

One of the things that JD says is that we have little people living in our art supplies and when we use those supplies, we are setting those little people free!  I like that she says "let's see who's living in here today", because there's not always the same person in our supplies...it's different people every time!  And that was the inspiration for the page I'm sharing today...it makes me smile to find the faces of my little people.  

Now, just so you know, I do differ from JD a little bit, because I know that my little people live in my hand and not my art supplies.  My little people might tell me they want to be drawn in a certain art supply, but they definitely live in my hand.  There's a whole sprawling city of them living in there!  And I know they are living in my hand, because if you used my art supplies, you'd draw the people living in your hand!  And they are probably very different from the ones that live in mine!  I think if the people lived in the art supplies themselves, then your little people would look much more like my little people, and what fun would that be?  So, in my opinion, my little art people live in Hand City and take the art supply bus to Watercolor Paper Town (or sometimes to other substrate themed locations...but Watercolor Paper Town is a pretty popular destination at my house)!

The other meaning for my page is about finding a familiar face in a crowd.  I have a hard time with large groups of people, especially when I'm alone...it makes me nervous.  I'm a lot better than I used to be...when I was a kid, I could hardly stand in line at a store without practically having a panic attack.  So I've gotten better, but even now, it's not one of my favorite things.  But if I'm with someone I know, it makes the whole thing much easier.  So I was thinking about going somewhere by myself, bumping into a familiar face, and the amount of relief it provides me.  

I could also imagine waiting for someone in a crowded place (like an airport...although I've personally never been to an airport...) and searching through all the unfamiliar faces til, at last, you find the person you've been looking for.  I blame romance movies for this one...you know, where they have to find their true love before the flight leaves...I bet you can think of a specific movie right now that has this scene in it.  Hollywood has even invaded the brain of a non-TV watcher like me!

So finding faces is something that makes me smile...what about you?  What is it that makes you so glad you can't help but have a physical reaction?  

A Tranquil Place in a Colorful Existence

Last night, I finished this week's Journal 52 page (you can read more about J52 and this week's prompt HERE)...just under the wire...but I did it!

This page had a long and odd progression, let me tell you.  What you see now is a FAR cry from what I started out thinking of:

"A tranquil place in a colorful existence"

...it was interesting to me how, like this page, our lives often end up no where near what we thought they'd be.  Even as I sat writing the journaling on this page, a tranquil place in a colorful existence, I thought I was writing about some imaginary future place...some place I might get to someday.  But when I started to think about it, I realized I already have it...

Someone once told me that the only reason I'm creative is because I don't have a life.  And I believed him.  I took his word as truth and internally bemoaned the fact that I didn't have a real life and started to feel sad about my artistic endeavors, because they were a sign that my life was less than everyone else's.

It took me a while to see it, but he was wrong.  He couldn't be more wrong.  

My life isn't what I imagined, but who's is?  I'm sick, I struggle, I have to work hard...but it's a good life.

My creativity isn't a sign of a lack of living, but a sign that I see life like very few people do.  

If you think about it, as artists, we see everything differently.  We find shape and color and pattern in whatever is around us.  We see beauty that others consistently miss.  When I walk around, I don't have my eyes stuck to my phone, I look up and actually see the world around me.  When I get home from work, I don't plop down in front of the TV and zombify, I sit at my desk with a brush in hand and transcribe all the glorious things I saw that day, whether anyone else can see it in my work or not.

I go to my job and I talk with people all day long who have lives similar to mine, but so vastly different that it's jaw-dropping.  I see lives and ways of thinking and motives that are so dissimilar from my own...but I see them, I understand them, I know what makes them the way they are.  I take influence from the people around me and put it into my art.

As creative types, we see things differently, and we think differently as well.  That's a gift, not a curse.  I could never be content to live a 'normal' life...there is no such thing.  I could never be a 'normal' person...again, there is no such thing.  Even if there was, I still wouldn't want to be like everybody else...I mean, have you seen everybody else?  

I think many people go through life with their eyes half closed, seeing only what they want to see.  As artists, our eyes are so wide open...we have no choice but to take it all in...and then we have the task of translating it for the rest of the world.  In small doses, we show people what they never knew they saw.  

Cesar Cruz said "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."  That's true, I think, and that's real power.  We have the ability to make people stop and look at things in another way.  How amazing is that?

So, no, my life isn't what I imagined.  I go to work, I come home, I make art.  To people looking in on that, it might seem as though I'm not really living at all.  But, my fellow artists, you know just how wrong those people are.  We get to hear, and feel, and see, and generally experience life on a level no one else does.  We see what's there, and we see what's hidden behind it.  We live our lives, however mundane they might seem, with a heightened sense of awareness.  And, to me, that is truly living.

I already have my tranquil place in a truly colorful existence.  I won't let anyone blur my vision again.

Journal 52 Week 1

I finally finished my first Journal 52 (J52 for short) spread!  You can read more about J52 HERE.  Last week, I appropriately dubbed 2014 so far to be the 'Year of Challenges'...I think it's a given...but so far, I've kept up with all of my self-imposed commitments.  So goody, goody gumdrops! 

When I remember, I try to take pictures of my pages in various degrees of completion...it actually helps to improve the page, I swear!  It can look great to me with the naked eye, but I take a picture and I can suddenly see that something's a little wonky...and then I can fix it before I move on to the next stage.  I'm sure there's some science-y explanation for this, but I don't know what it is, and mostly, I just care that it works for me...  

Here's my J52 Week 1 spread for the prompt "Up, Up, and Away" (side note: I hope all of the J52 prompts are as interesting to me as this one was!): 

Here it is in the rough sketch stage.  I used a circle template for all the balloons, which felt like a stroke of genius to me...you have no idea how misshapen those poor balloons would have been otherwise!  I messed up on her left hand, and since I used colored pencil, no erasing could occur...but it's ok, I fixed it eventually!

Here is the beginning shading page.  I'm still working on my colored pencil shading skills...more Prismacolors, please!  Thanks to this picture, I noticed how wonky her eyes were...in real life, it didn't seem that bad, but when I took the picture....WHAM!  Those eyes were REALLY off...

(Sorry for the blurriness!)  More colored pencil happening now...also Aquamarkers were added for the balloons and in the hair and dress...and Distress Stain in Tumbled Glass was used for the sky  color of the background...I like how the Distress Stain came out a little patchy...it made it look like a more realistic sky to me.  See how much better the eyes are now?  Still not perfect, but WAY less weird looking!

TA-DA!  Here's the finished page...YAY!  Added some shading on the balloons with a water-soluble pen   Side note: I use Artist Loft (Michael's store brand) Illustration Pens as my water-soluble pens...they claim to be 'water resistant', but they resist ZERO water...not even a little...which I was really disappointed about when I first got them...then I realized I could just go with it and make that work for me...and with a coupon, they were way cheaper than buying on purpose water-soluble pens.  Win/win situation!  Some more shading on the girl done with Aquamarkers.  Highlights on the balloons and the girl with white pen.  And a few touches of Micron to the girl's eyes.  Also look at the hand...it's much better now!  I added some journaling in the strings of the balloons...not much, just the title "Up, Up, and Away", the date, and my signature.

I'm S-U-P-E-R (say it cheerleader style haha) excited with the way this page turned out!  One thing I wish I would have done differently is to make the stings between the balloons and the girls hands be taut instead of all loosey goosey...I mean, physics...come on...  But I guess the idea of balloons being able to carry a girl away is enough of a stretch that I can forgive myself some magical balloon strings that don't follow the laws of nature...

One of the things I really liked about J52 was the lady's suggestion of using a 3 ring binder as your art journal...hence the holes punched in the page.  The reason I'm excited is that I want to make some heavily textured/3-D pages, but I never do, because it's hard (aka too much of a hassle for me personally) to work in the rest of your journal after you put a good and bumpy one in the mix.  Now I can just work on loose watercolor paper with holes punched in it and make the page as thick and juicy as a person could ever want it to be!  I'm kind of excited about that...oh, the possibilities....

Now I've just got to get to work on making my binder pretty...

Inner Excavations Week Four

This week's chapter for Inner Excavations has been "I see me..." and deals with how we see ourselves verses how other people see us, as well as the whole 'body issues' thing.  

In a previous post, I showed the photo I used (of myself) as a basis for this painting, and it was fun for me to see what people's reactions were.  I've done this before in one of the Facebook groups I'm in too.  It's also happened to me at my job, where I talk to people extensively on the phone without meeting them...then when I finally do meet them, it's interesting to gauge the reactions.  I tend to get a lot of "That's not what I thought you'd look like...at all...".  I get that one a lot when meeting the phone conversation type people from my work.  I honestly think that one's due to the fact that I have a phone voice that is what I like to call "high school cheerleader voice"...which does not really match my physical appearance so much.  It makes first meetings a little bit of a let down for the other person, if said person is interested in the ladies...  On the positive side, I could easily get a position as a phone sex operator if times got tough.  

I also get a lot of "cute" and "adorable" comments.  Which I'm totally good with...I mean, I AM cute and adorable!  :)  But it's taken me a really long time to come to terms with that.  One of the ladies I work with likes to tell me "Not every man likes a skinny girl...it takes all kinds."  Which, is true, although I think it comes with a little bit of pity/this-is-the-nice-thing-to-say attached when she says it.  There are totally guys out there who think thin girls are grody and thick girls are made for cuddling.  I'm married, so their opinions are pretty much meaningless for me either way.  But they ARE out there my single thick girls...way more than I realized when I was a single lady...so don't lose hope! 

Three years ago, when I first stared at the job I'm at now, before anybody really knew me/knew I was married, I had three separate incidences of guys being interested in me as a...'lady friend'...bow-chicka-bow-wow.  It was the craziest thing that ever happened to me.  I think mostly because I am oblivious to flirting. You basically have to honk a boob or try to suck on my tonsils before I realize you're being anything more than friendly.  So I never really think people are flirting, I just think they're being nice.  But these were pretty direct advances that even oblivious ole me could pick up on... 

I was telling my sister about my experiences right after they happened (because they kept getting progressively more...forward...and if there had been one more, he would have had to just pull out his wiener and slap me in the forehead with it for it to be any more "forward" than it was) and I remember that the thing I was most surprised about was that 'these guys don't even know me'. 

As I told my sister, I am, and have always been (except for the year and a half of being a skinny girl when I was 19/20 years old), the kind of girl that is friend first, building into more.  ALWAYS.  I mean, I'm not a hideous beast monster or anything, but I'm no prize pig either...and I tend to win dudes over with my personality.  (My personality is really sexy! haha)  I don't just catch somebody's eye when I walk past them!  I'm not that girl!  But here were three different instances in close succession which told me otherwise!  And I was kind of freaked out by it!  They were messing with my reality!  

This was part of my sister's response, directly quoted out of the email she sent me when all this happened (I keep the really important ones!  My sister is a wealth of knowledge/info/hilariousness!): "Obviously, you are not as physically ogre-like as you tell yourself because people do find you attractive even without [knowing of] your cunning, wit, and charm...not to mention your crafty skills..."

This was a big turning point for me, I think, regarding how I viewed myself.  Before this, I basically knew that people could 'get past' my physical appearance because (as previously mentioned) I have a good personality...but here was three separate evidences in short order that some people actually enjoyed my physical appearance!  That was an entirely new concept for me!  I basically learned that maybe that guy isn't looking at me because I have something stuck in my teeth...or a low hanging booger...or whatever.  Maybe that guy is looking at me because he thinks I'm hot stuff!  It was a radical concept for me...

I guess, more than thinking about how I see me vs. how others see me, I have been thinking about how I see me now compared to how I used to see me...because I didn't really have an accurate idea of what others thought of me at all.  I used to think of myself as plain...boring...annoying to others... an acquired taste...a total weirdo that was 'off-putting' to most people.  As I've gotten older (and possibly wiser), I've come to see that I was looking at things in the wrong light.  I'm not plain.  I'm cute and adorable!  In general, I'm DEFINITELY not boring...  I'm not annoying or off-putting, people like to be around me...people choose to be around me.  I might not be everybody's cup of tea, but for some, I'm their favorite flavor! 

The reason I say that this is more about how I see me than how other people do, when all the above things have to do with how people view me, is that, while I'm changing and growing as a person, I haven't completely overhauled my personality.  I've progressed, I've gotten rid of a lot of baggage, and I've matured, but for the most part, I'm still the same person.  Outwardly, I haven't changed a whole heaping huge amount.  But inwardly, the person I am now is vastly different.  I could have felt confident in myself all along, but I didn't.  I could have accepted (what I view as) my quirks and understood that those 'weird' ways are what make me interesting...but I didn't.  I wasn't at that point yet.  

I saw this quote a while ago that says "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."  I think that in my case, it should read 'accepting who you are'.  It's taken me thirty years, but I finally am learning that it's ok to be who exactly who I am.  Sure I have faults and flaws that I want to work on, things I want to improve about myself, and ways I still need to grow as a person...I'm sure I will continue to grow and evolve till the day I die...I hope so anyway.  But learning that, overall, at the heart of everything, who I am is just fine, that it's something to be proud of...that's been a real privilege for me.

And so here's the finished spread for Week Four of Inner Excavations: 

"I move forward.  I look at the past with love.  I will not look back with regret, because regret will only hold me back and I am determined to press on.  I am a work in progress and I am moving forward all the time.  Nothing can stop me.  I am a constant work in progress..."  The "I move forward" and the part on the left page are both stamps, the rest is just my (attempt at legible) handwriting.  The "I move forward" letters didn't show up well (there are pretty designs in the letters in the actual stamps)  so I went over and colored them in so that they would stand out.  I like that they are so BOLD! 

Thanks to Mo and Pamikins for the help with the journaling on this.  They both hit the nail on the head with their suggestions, and I really like the message combined with the painting in this.  It makes me super happy!

I did make a few changes to the face in this, including adding some shadow to the hair and changing the nose.  Thank you to Bibi for the suggestion about the nose, I think it is much improved now, and thank you to  Raine for pointing out the angles being different...it worked out much better with that new photo as a reference for the shading.  Now I feel like I've got two new tools in my arsenal of face making skills for the future as well!!!

I had written a lot of this post before the whole hospital stay happened, but just finished it up today.  I am still pretty puny, but am feeling even better today than I did yesterday, so fingers crossed that I will continue in the upward direction!  Thanks for all the well wishes and sweet words from yesterday's post.  I promise I will get back to all the comments, it's just gonna take some time, but I don't want you to think I would forget!  I am sending squishy love in all directions to meet each of you. <3

Inner Excavations Week 3

I 'finished' my spread for week 3 of Inner Excavations today.  Finished gets quotation marks, because I'm thinking I may add a little bit of personal writing in there now that I've photographed it.

I'm a little behind, thanks to my fabulous trip to Ohio and the horrible amount of overtime I've been working since then...but that's ok, it's not a race, right?

This chapter, entitled "I gather..." deals with the things that we collect.  Maybe you saw my cheating post from yesterday...the post I posted so I could post SOMETHING.  Well it was fifteen minutes till midnight when I started that post and wrote in in all of five minutes, so I thought I should go back and re-read it because I doubt the intelligence of my brain when it's almost midnight and I try to use said brain for thinking...

I laughed as I was looking at it this morning, because despite the fact that it was a post for the sake of posting, there is a lot of real life truth going on in the picture in that post.  And by that I mean, WOW what a mess...

But I also mean, in that messy picture, there was a lot of meaning for me.

Someone once told me that the reason I collected my various creative hobbies was because I didn't have anything better to do.  He said that I did these things because I didn't have a life.  Egads, it broke my heart when he said that.  At the time , I did what I always did: I wrote a poem about it.

Analysis

I'm tired of writing pretty words 

and making pretty pictures to pass the time.

I think I must create these things 

to forget myself and that I mind

that I can't feel like others do,

and only to forget a moment.

Things will never be as they once were.

The time for it is lost to me and can't be found again.

I think I finally understand 

actions I could not comprehend before.

To be loved is not enough, 

a person needs to feel it.

My heart refuses to understand.

And friendship isn't going to fix it

and I long for someone to hold my hand

without having to believe it's pity, 

without having to believe it's a lie.

But that never comes.

So I keep writing lines 

and I keep making marks on blank pages

to pass the precious time.

I wish he hadn't said what he did 

because he ruined my words 

and he ruined my pictures

by telling me the truth:

that I wish I didn't have to write

and I wish I didn't have to make marks

but that's all I have.

Even though that's not a life, 

that's all I have.

I don't know if the person who said those things to me realized what he set off in my brain.  I don't think it was said with malice.  It was just an offhand statement.  But for a long time after that, it was hard to do anything creative.  I guess I resented my artistic side.  Because my brain kept adding things to what he'd said: If you were pretty, if you were thin, if you were more interesting, people would want to be around you and you'd have better things to do than waste your life sloshing paint or sewing toys or crocheting scarves.  My brain kept telling me that the only reason I wanted to be creative was to make up for what I lacked in other areas.

But because I don't listen to my jerk brain for long when it starts spouting crap like that, I decided to grab my brushes and an art journal and figure out the real reason I wanted to be creative.

And what I figured out is that I LIKE to be creative.  It makes me HAPPY.  I can't sit there in front of a television for hours a day like 'normal' people do.  I couldn't stand that!  It's not relaxing to me.  It does nothing for me but waste time.  And yeah, maybe I 'waste' time doing my creative stuff.  But here's the clincher...WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE?  At least when I MAKE something, there's an end result!  There's something that I can look at and say "I did that, it made me happy to do that, and I grew as a person while I was doing it".

The over-analyzer in my brain knows that maybe there's a little bit of truth in the statement that I wouldn't do these creative things if I had a life.  Or, more correctly, if I had a different life.  I have a life.  If I had a different life though, in all honesty, I probably wouldn't be creative...at least not as much as I am now.

The big issue for me is kids.  I don't have kids.  It's just not in the cards for me.  I've talked about it before, so I won't go into detail in that regard, but I will say this: If I had kids (a kid, whatever) I probably wouldn't be so creative or at least wouldn't spend so much time with it.  Not because I wouldn't have as much time, although clearly that's a factor...but it's more about the fact that kids are...proof that you were here.  They're your legacy to the world.  When you die, there will be someone to remember you, because you were their mom or dad.  I don't have that.  I'm never gonna have that.  So how will anybody remember me?  Sure I have nephews and nieces and co-workers and all that, but how much easier will it be to remember me when you're looking at a 6 foot long crochet snake that I made?  And you'd know more about me...clearly, that I'm fun...and that I really LOVE my nephew (because I DID NOT want to crochet a 6 foot long snake...but I did...because he asked for it, and I love him...).

I art journal in case this technology is not available at the time of my inevitable demise....

It's the same with art journaling.  If at some point I die...and they haven't perfected Futurama technology (...you know, that whole 'living head in a jar' thing...) my art is still gonna be there.  For someone to look at and say, "so that's who she was and how she felt"...

To quote Edna St. Vincent Millay:  "This book, when I am dead, will be a little faint perfume of me.  People who knew me well will say: "She really used to think that way.""


In the end, you want to know what I really gather?

"I gather wisdom"  

I gather wisdom.  It's not always like picking flowers...it's not all beauty and fun and good times.  I think it's more like mining diamonds...it's dark, its dangerous, sometimes people die, and there are times when you question whether all that effort is really worth it.  But, you know, there's tremendous value in wisdom...infinitely more than there is in diamonds...

Dylusions over washi tape and using stencils.  Then craft acrylic and black sharpie for lettering.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that there will be an end result.  I do enjoy the immediate benefits of the self-knowledge I gain every time I work in one of my journals.  But there's accumulated value as well.  One day, I know I am going to feel like a complete person.  The complete person I choose to be.  And I learn more and more about the person I want to be, the person I'm ACTUALLY BECOMING every time I let myself do something creative.

I think this is quite a comical looking owl for such a serious topic, but hey, I am an mish mash of all kinds of stuff, it's ok if the cartoonish owl represents something deep and meaningful!

Going back to the moral of the story...do I think I "wouldn't art journal if I had a life"?  Not really.  In fact, I honestly believe the art journaling is helping me create a life...helping me reclaim my right to my own life...helping me to live the life that I choose.  

Inner Excavations Week 1

No ICADS this time...I got myself all in a tizzy about messing up the prompt order (I don't know why it's such a big deal to me, but it REALLY is! *angry eyes* ) and haven't done any to the point of finishing and sharing them since.

Actually, I am thinking I am going to wimp out of ICAD...or not wimp out...but...um....back off?  I started doing the ICAD cards because I wanted to do something creative every day, and I liked the idea of something simple and small and tossable if it was too hideous.  And that worked out awesomely for a while. Then I got so involved in doing the cards that I would do them instead of other art.  I think this is where I lost my way...I didn't lose interest, mind you!  I still think it's a great idea, and I am pretty sure I will pick them back up again at some point.  But for right now, my general feeling is that messing up the prompt order and all the CRAZY PERSON amount of stress that resulted from something so little is my brain's attempt to signal me that it's time to do something else for a while.  I love my art journals way too much to neglect them the way I have.  

So, anyhow, I'm thinking that I will do a card on days that I don't have time to do something else or when inspiration is being a hoochie and shaking it in somebody else's craft room.  I feel like the ICAD does deserve a round of applause because it did last a couple weeks for me, and usually my attention span is... wait, I see something shiny...

I am actually starting a different project, which kind of makes me feel like ICAD's slutty girlfriend who left him for someone else...  I'm sorry ICAD...it's not you, it's me!  We can still be friends... *guilty eyes*

In lieu of ICAD, I am starting the Inner Excavate-along over on Effy Wild's blog (as suggested by my friend Wendy).  I am going through the book Inner Excavations-Explore Your Self Through Photography, Poetry, and Mixed Media (by Liz Lamoreax) along with some really wonderful and interesting people.  You can read more about the excavate-along (and join in the dig if you want!) HERE.

As I have mentioned several times in the past, I am generally not a fan of (what I consider to be) the hippy dippy, and when I first skimmed the info on Amazon, I thought that's what it was going to be...  But I went with it and, so far, it has not been too bad!  

Instead of the usual spouting of 'you can do it' and then giving you step by step projects to copy, this book focuses more on the ideas and tasks leading you into being creative, and what direction it takes is entirely up to you.  It is more of a mental and emotional workshop than anything.  And NOT in a fruit loopy way.  It does encourage you 'be present' and take in things that are going on around you.  And to look into the why behind what your thoughts and feelings are.  And you have to know, I am a big fan of the why!  

There are not step by step projects, but there are some really pretty pictures as well as suggestions and tips for inspiration.  I think this would be a great book for people who tend to compare what they do with other people's work.  You know, they follow all the directions and it doesn't end up looking like the picture in the book and then it's a failure in their eyes.  In this book you're really just given inspiration and left to decide for yourself what to do.  I actually REALLY like that aspect!

I like that it involves art, poetry, and photography.  I, of course, LOVE art journaling.  And I have always enjoyed poetry, both reading and writing.  And I do have the desire to start taking more pictures...  So maybe this book was the right thing at the right time after all.  The pictures in the book are just gorgeous and it makes me want to go crazy nut-job with my camera...  

All of the above made me realize I was judging a book by it's cover...how cliche am I???  Stop being so judgmental Sweets!!!

I decided I am going to do a two page spread each week for the art portion of the tasks.  I am using my Dylusions Creative Journal (AT LAST!!!) for this.  It's so much different than what I'm used to...for the sheer size of the journal alone!  Especially considering I've been doing 3x5 ICAD cards for the past three weeks, the 11x8 pages are just HUGE!  I think this is a good thing for the excavate along, because I have the tendency to try to get an entire page done in one day.  I know it's going to be impossible for me to do that in this gigantic journal!  I need to take my time and really consider the information and suggestions in the book, and I think having this huge journal to work in will make me take my time and really THINK about things, instead of just trying  to (semi-mindlessly) make pretty pictures with a quickness.  

So, the point to all that blabbing is that I (shockingly enough) really enjoyed doing the first chapter.

And here's my first two page spread:

There were some really interesting ideas for the photography portion.  I decided that since this is supposed to be exploring self, I would do some awesome bathroom mirror self-portraits.  I feel the need to express how much I am not a fan of having my picture taken.  The whole time I was thinking I might as well be a teenage girl...  It was all I could do to take it seriously and not do the duck face girl look...or the thumbs up cheesy smile look... or the looking off in the distance for some reason look (ok, full disclosure, I did do this one)...  Instead, I did the 'try to make sure my face is actually in the picture look' and the 'I can't see the button, did I just take the picture?' look...  I'm cool like that....

Here's a closer look at just the left page:

I don't have a great printer, and all my photos for this project are going to have to be printed out on it, so we'll just have to get used to grainy photos.  I  tried to use it to my advantage a little bit and make them look like vintage-y photos.  The only one I didn't do anything to is the photo in the middle of this page.  The others I used paint, gelatos, and some other things to age them.    I had done this background a while ago, and , in the beginning, I hadn't planned on using the huge Dylusions journal for this project.  But after doing the poetry prompt, it jumped out at me to work with this background, and I think it works.  I really liked that the stamped girl in the top left was looking down over the page, so I wanted to play with that idea and take it farther.  In the top right photo, I am looking down at my phone (to see if  I am in the shot).  Now it looks to me like I'm looking down at the drawing.  I did the drawing from one of the photos I took that didn't make the cut.  (See, I DID do the 'looking off in the distance for no reason' picture!  *hangs head in shame*)  So I think the drawing looks like she is looking at the middle picture, which is neat because this project is all about exploring 'self'.  I liked the middle picture, because to me it looks like I'm STARING INTO YOUR SOUL!!! BWA-HA-HA!!!  I don't know.  I am not great at thinking about myself although you probably wouldn't guess that from the blog.  In all reality, I guess I don't actually talk a great deal about myself (the deep inner workings part anyway), usually it's the art and then I explain the thought behind it.  This Excavating is like a whole huge Sweet Red Clover bonanza!  

Here's a close up of the right page:

More of my face...I hope you guys love my face, because it seems like you'll be seeing more of it...spattered all over the AJ pages...  I like that there happened to be the peacock feather down in the background I had done.  It fits, because I am pretty proud of myself for going into this thing despite my qualms.  It's been really enjoyable and interesting so far!  And I do love it when I am pushed to go in a direction that is outside my norm...like the photography thing.  Speaking of, I know I am going to have to work on the photography a lot, because these pictures really don't show the brightness of the background at all!  I want to blame it on my camera and say that it doesn't pick up high contrasts well, but really it probably does and I just don't know how to do that yet...I'll work on it.  You know me: practice, practice, practice is my mantra!  On a side note, check out my huge hands!  I swear to goodness, I have ACTUAL MAN HANDS!  They are crazy big, right?!?  ...sorry, that was just a side note...  Anyway, this page has the poem I wrote for the 'Just Write' portion of the chapter.   I stuck with my narcissistic theme and did most of the thoughts starting out with 'I' phrases.

Here is the poem I wrote for the writing portion.  (It's hard to make out in some places in the photo) :

I am a still life painting.

But I am not the color.

I am the black 

the white

the haze

that makes the colors pop off the page

necessary in small doses

but abhorred just the same

for my light and my darkness

neither of which can be discarded

but somehow still so hard to appreciate

"If only she were this instead of that"

or "that instead of this"

but I am not.

Your eyes are drawn away by color

by the noisy crashing of brighter hues.

And you do not really see me.

I begin to see cracks, fissures in my flawed nature

opening wider, 

being pried apart by desperate fingers

spurred on by eyes longing to see what's hidden inside.

I stand resolute but silent:

I am not the song being sung.

I am the catch in the throat, 

the strangled cry.

In my heart I call to you.

I call only your name.

I desire to make sense of  

this curse and gift

like any other, to find meaning 

in things that seem 

so meaningless

so transient, 

so beautiful, yet all in vain

That first part of the poem is what made me think of the bright glorious background I had done in the journal. Then the additions I did, my pictures and the text and drawing and things, were black and white or very bland neutralish colors.  I like that it ties in with the poem in that way.  

I can't wait to see what next week brings about...I'll have a whole week to play with the book this time.  I only just got the book on Friday, and kind of cheated a little by using the background I had done so that I would not feel rushed to keep up...not that you have to do it that way, it's just my slightly neurotic way. Now I'm left with clean blank pages to work on for all the other week...so no cheating can happen!  If the rest of the weeks are as awesome as this first week, I doubt I'll have any problems with 'cheating'...I'm looking forward to digging in full force and really getting down to the roots.

Wow, that was a long ramble!  I'm off to shovel some dirt now...

ICAD, Art Journal and Canvas Hooray!

First, a big thanks to everybody for helping me hit 3,000 page views!  You guys made me do the happy dance today!  It wasn't too long ago that I was doing the happy dance over 2,000...I am going to have to start thinking about some kind of giveaway for when I hit 5,000...it's going to creep up on me and I'll be unprepared if I'm not careful!  If anybody has any ideas on that, I'm open to suggestions...

So I got to do some artsy stuff today, and I'm super excited about it!  I'm always super excited, aren't I?  It's like I'm bipolar, but only ever visit the one pole, you know what I mean?  

Up first is my ICAD card, which I'm cheating on and doing two prompts in one card, because I messed up my order royally and now I'm just confused and scared!  Help!  Help!  

This card is 3x5 and the prompts were 'your name in block letters' and 'logo':

I think I failed at block letters...I don't think there are supposed to be curves in block letters...but I didn't research that first, and so I ended up with this.   I did get to use some of my FANTABULOUS Silks acrylic glazes to color it in...I am not one for glittery things usually, but EGADS! I love those things so much!  This whole week for ICAD is bound to be a do-over, because I just went cuckoo or something.  The 'logo' part is my stylized little red clover.  I've used it before, hit and miss, but I like it quite a lot and I think it will be my signature from now on, mostly because it keeps me from having to sign my name in my terrible 12-year-old boy handwriting...  (Who am I kidding?  Even 12-year-old boys have better handwriting than me!)

Next I did a page (or really a two-page spread) in one of my art journals:

This is not my usual thing...  The colors and the collage-y look are both out of the norm for me.  This was kind of an experiment page.  I used some muslin I had painted black (I painted the muslin forever ago, testing out some textile medium I had bought.)  On the right page, behind the stamped image (the one that is not torn) is the scrap piece of paper I used underneath the muslin when I painted it...isn't that a neat effect how the paint came through all randomly?  I think it's a pretty nifty pattern!  The stamped images were also me testing things out.  Same stamp, in different inks (some images then covered in perfect pearls) on pages from my old Spanish/English dictionary.  I colored some of the pages using alcohol inks as well to make them look more aged...they were already pretty old, but not quite as darkly antique colored as they are now.  The journaling says: "I think somewhere along the way I have been torn apart and I must spend the rest of my life piecing myself back together." 

And finally, the thing I am REALLY super excited about:

Woo Hoo!!!   My bird at sunrise painting!  He's on an 8x10 canvas.  I would just like to mention that I do NOT like working on canvases.  I know it's because I'm just not used to them, but ARG!  I much prefer my safe and easy watercolor paper!  ...but I will keep practicing on the canvases.   One day, I will probably look back at this post and say what a weenie I was for not liking to work on canvas.  As much as I disdained working on the canvas, I am so very, very happy with how the painting turned out!  And look, I even used my little red clover to sign it with!  Squeeee!  It makes me so happy!

I did the painting along with the completely awesome (and very nice) Marc Charles from Painting with Marc on YouTube.  Some darling amigas from one of the Facebook groups I am in suggested watching his first video (I made an ICAD card using what I learned in the video...you can see the result in my last post).  Now, I am HOOKED!  

Here is the video for your viewing pleasure...and listening pleasure (I LOVE his accent!  *sigh*  It's just delicious, I swear I could listen to him read the dictionary!):

He does such a great job of teaching you how to do things!  I am enamored with him and his art and his style of teaching!  He kindly accepted a Facebook friending from me, and, let me just say, he is such a sweetie pie!  So go subscribe to his channel on YouTube and go friend him (and me, of course!) on Facebook and see just how wonderful he really is!  I think I am going to end up doing all of his tutorials, so be forewarned: You will be hearing about Marc again!

So those are my major accomplishments for the day...what did you get into?