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!

(Secret) Lover

Today's REVERB14 prompt is:

Write a (love) letter from you to you...filled with forgiveness, love, and a big bear hug.

"I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
-Vincent Van Gogh

I didn't want to write you this letter.  It seemed stupid to me to put down in writing things you should already know.  But how can you know them?  I say these things to other people, but never to you...not on sunny days when I'm proud of the person you've become and not in the middle of dark, cold nights when you're lying in bed scared to death and all you need is for someone to tell you it's going to be alright...I never speak up.  You deserve to know the truth:

I see how hard you try.  I know how very close you've been to giving up and how you fought, tooth and nail, just to make it through one day, one hour, one minute.  All while wearing a smile on your face, so that no one else would be burdened with the pain you felt.

I know how you've grown as a person.  How you put yourself out in the world, despite your fear that you would be rejected, and let your voice be heard and your self be seen.  I've seen you tell the truth, even though someone might have used it to hurt you and even though it was the last thing you wanted to do.  I've seen you, shaking in your shoes, but still standing your ground.  I've seen you learn what it means to forgive and move on and how you've been rewarded for it.

I see you making difficult decisions, even though you fear the consequences.  I see you understanding at last that walking away from someone who continually hurts you may be the only solution that works...and that you finally understand that you can't live your life for other people...that you are the only one with the right to decide how you live.  It's sweet of you to not want to disappoint the people you love, but you know you have to decide your future.  They can't decide for you anymore ..it's up to them if they don't want to be involved in the life you make.  And it's ok to be sad about that, but it's not ok to push yourself into their mold...I know you see that now.

I wish I could tell you differently, but my love for you isn't perfect.  It waxes and wanes at the most inopportune times.  I'm fickle mostly and can never decide exactly how it is that I see you: good or bad, strong or weak, wise or foolish.  My love for you isn't black and white, but infinite shades of a million colors and I expect you to know things I can never convey.

But I'm working on it, I'm getting better at it...and you, too, improve with time...you get more lovable as you take another step towards letting the person you are on the inside become the one you are on the outside.  

I love you more today than I did yesterday.  Tomorrow I will love you more.  And I promise that I will keep loving you as long as you keep dragging yourself out of bed in the morning and facing the day with open eyes and an open heart.

Routine

The prompt for today's REVERB14 is:

What tiny rituals: signal that your day is starting, help you ease into a creative project, give you closure from an intensive task, or mark other significant milestones in your day?  What new rituals would you like to create in the new year?

"If you cannot find your way on the beaten path, then perhaps the time has come to blaze your own."

I suppose my morning ritual is my husband waking me up (his job starts earlier than mine) by saying "Wake up. I gotta go" while violently shaking me awake...he is THE WORST person to have wake you up, I swear it.  The phrase "I gotta go" is kind of a running joke between me and him, because he repeats it at least ten times before he actually leaves the house.  No one is trying to stop him from leaving...it's just his weird way of saying goodbye.

Nowadays, I'm pretty much a zombie for the first half hour my eyes are open.  My mom teases me about my inability to have a simple conversation first thing in the morning.  But that wasn't always the case.

I used to be able to jump out of bed ready to face the day...you know, one of those annoyingly perky people that field mice and song birds help dress in the morning (a la Cinderella)?  Yeah, that used to be me.  I used to be the kind of girl who got more stuff done before breakfast than most people do all day.

That Cinderella version of me (Sweets-erella or is it CinderSweets?) got killed off a long time ago at the hands of apathy...at first from others and then my own.  Indifference is extremely contagious.

For instance, if you spend all day cleaning your house, just to have someone come in and crap it up in thirty minutes, you eventually quit trying...or maybe that was just me.

When there are two people involved in something, both people have to work towards the same goal.  When it seems that the person who's supposed to be on your team is in the routine of undermining your efforts, you get discouraged and will eventually stop putting forth that effort.  It doesn't necessarily mean you've given up on your goal...just that you recognize the fruitlessness of trying to accomplish it at the current time.  Eventually, it becomes your routine not to care either or at least to live with things as they are because it's too much work to do anything else.  But the stress caused by not accomplishing the things you want to simmers under the surface and you eventually start sleeping through the alarm clock and you start drop-kicking the birds and mice that came to help you dress...again, maybe that's just me...

I've gotten to the point where I am apathetic about things that should be important and I hate it.  I've got no respect for that type of person.

Apathy is a well worn path at my house, but I refuse to let it be the endgame.

Things will change for me very soon.  I will make them change.  And in time, the routine I'm currently in will be nothing but a distant memory, written off as a learning experience.

Eventually, the birds and mice will forgive me and come help me dress in the morning again.  My house will stay clean.  And instead of being apathetic, this will be me:

...beavers around the world will rejoice at how many damns I give.

I've realized I can't keep taking the same road and expect it to get me anywhere other than where it's always gotten me.  Instead, I've got to be bold, branch off, and start a new path.  

It seems scary and overwhelming now, because I've gotten so used to my routine...but I know that, in time, I will have a new routine that was forged by my own two hands.  

As Helen Keller put it, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing".  I'm not scared and overwhelmed, I'm an adventurer!  I'm not getting lost out in the world, I'm a trailblazer, making my own way.  And I am not Rhett Butler, because, frankly, my dears, I DO give a damn.

Darn Skippy

I feel like a bit of a cheat for this week's JOURNAL 52 page.  I had already done the background...it was one of my attempts at the sky idea I had in my head for last week's prompt, but they just refused to work out how I wanted them to, so I figured I'd just use them for backgrounds for some other project.  I didn't think I'd use one quite so fast though...

In addition to having an already done background, I just did a sketchy girl on the page with a plain old ink pen...all in all, I might have spent fifteen minutes on her...  Recently, I've been going gangbusters on my pages and they take me a long while to finish, so this quick gal feels a little bit like a rip off...but then again, I like her so much that I think she's perfect exactly how she is:

"The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering.
Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life."
-Vasudev

The prompt for J52 this week was "create a page in your journal for someone in your thoughts this week who needs a little love, hope, and encouragement – even if that person happens to be yourself!"

I just felt too awkward to make an encouraging page for someone who would never actually see the encouraging page...or else I am just awfully self-centered...I'm not sure which.  Either way, I ended up using a quote that makes me feel better personally...especially with that sassy gal giving me that funny look...

I got the quote while scrolling through Pinterest, my one-stop inspiration shop, and it really is something I needed to hear.  Whether it's true or not, it made me feel better.

I spend a lot of mental energy plotting different options.  I question everything...and then question those questions.  I sometimes wonder if I'm alone in this...because most people I know don't seem to be that way.  I think a lot of people see the surface of things and accept them at face value.  I am not that way...probably to a fault...I tend to need more information before I accept anything.  And even then, I suppose, my opinions are subject to change...so maybe I never really accept anything fully.  The funny thing is that I will also stick by my opinions and defend them relentlessly.  

A friend of mine told me that I always have to be right...but that's not really true.  I just need someone to show me why I should change my mind.  I like to think that I am not one to blindly follow...no matter how much I like a person, if I think they're wrong, they're wrong until they prove otherwise.  And being like that kind of goes back to the fact that I question everything.  Most of the time, I've already thought of the other side of the discussion...so I know what the problems are with that other side.  I don't like to argue, but discussing things...well that's a whole different kettle of fish...

Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me because of my constant questioning and need for information.  I know that everybody is different and that the world would be boring if we were all the same, but when everyone around you is one way and you are another...it's easy to feel weird about your quirks...and I do have quite a few of those to feel weird about.

My sassy, sketchy gal pal and the quote on my journal page are to remind me that maybe it's a good thing I'm not so sure about what's going on in my life...

But then again, I could be wrong...

  

Tabs

I've had one of these weeks...the yuck kind of week.  One of the kittens passed away very unexpectedly and without warning.  Apparently, it's not uncommon for that to happen between 3 and 6 weeks for kittens, generally from birth defects, often related to their hearts.  But it's still very sad and makes me worry about the other kitten, who we've officially renamed Mortimer, because he just couldn't be "Fat Tony" without his brother Pauly, so now he's Mortimer and it suits him much better.

In addition to that sadness, I said goodbye to yet another tooth yesterday, in an emergency yanking.  For the record, if at all possible, try to avoid the emergency yankings, because they cost about 3.5 times as much as a yanking at your regular dentist.  On the opposite side, it was the most pain-free yanking I have ever had, so it was almost worth the extra money, because that sucker just popped right out and I looked at the dentist as he walked away and said "Was that it!?!"  It was a glorious moment for dentistry, let me tell you.  Also on the positive side, I'm running out of teeth to yank, and since they don't grow back, I'll very soon not have to deal with the tooth pain ever again!  And I can get dentures and be able to actually chew things again.  The prospect of chewing things is very exciting for me...

Also on the sad side of things: my walks had to be suspended due to stupid Daylight Savings time.  I am kind of in a funk about that.  But my friend Gayle and I have decided to have dinner once every two weeks until we can get back out on the trail.  And that's a good thing!

Also, weird emotional stuff keeps popping up for me this week and last.  I'm trying to avoid going down to blue funk town, but the waa-waa's have been kind of pervasive.  And you can see it in my JOURNAL 52 page for the "Stencil" prompt:

"You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, something not everyone knows how to love." -Warson Shire

I really like this page, despite the line backer body I seem to have given her.  Let's call it a metaphor for how we hold so much inside of us and not the fact that I wasn't paying attention to the scale of things when I drew the shoulder area...because it makes me sound so much more artistic the first way...

For DOCUMENTED LIFE this week, the prompt was to "Add a Tab" and this is what I came up with:

I used acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, modeling past with gelato added to color, dylusions, image transfers, and metallic foil embossing/rub-ons.

This is not one of my usual color combos...it's so...girly!  I think the only thing that saved it for me was the black Dylusions...  Once I added that, I really liked how it looked!

Here it is with the tags removed from the pockets.

I was really enjoying the foil embossing...can you tell?

"I got my own back." -Maya Angelou
"I was never one of those girls..."

One side of the tags ended up matching the page pretty exactly...the other side is brighter and bolder for sure:

"Look for the answer inside your question." -Rumi
"Very few of us are what we seem." -Agatha Christie

I think the girl with the Rumi quote is my favorite one...I really like the frame around her head.  Also, in happy accident territory, this is what happens when you are impatient and you don't let your gel medium dry completely during an image transfer...shame on me, but I also think it looks really cool!

I really like the "Tab" prompt, because it led me to do the pull-out tags.  I like that there's an interactive part to the page, most of my pages are not like that.  I think I am going to make it a goal to make my journals more interactive in the future.

Speaking of the future, are you as excited as I am for the new sessions of J52 and DLP?  The fact that I've stuck with two year-long projects is really motivating me to try to do even more, so I've also got some other plotting going on in my mind for projects next year...nothing concrete just yet, but the plotting is abounding! 

Have you heard of any other year-long weekly or monthly challenges in the works?  I'd love to have another thing to include in my plotting... 

Where My Feet Go

I'm making up for my slacktitude since vacation with this second post (that ended up pretty long!) in short succession.  Woo Hoo!

I've also got a few more vacation photos at the end of this post (though not all of them, because...lazy photo editor...), so yay for that too!

This week's Documented Life (DLP) prompt was "Polka Dots" and here's what I came up with:

How can there be so much white space and it still be so busy!?!

As you might be able to tell, I had gone a completely different direction for my first attempt at this spread...but I REALLY hated it, so I gessoed over it...one thin coat...clearly too thin...and tried again.  Even though you can see the first try through the gesso...which I didn't really pay attention to until it was too late... I like it much better now.  Mostly because of the quote:

"Your feet will take you where your heart is." -Irish Proverb
I'm giving myself high fives over my slow but steady lettering improvement...VERY slow, but when I actually take my time I can see it getting a better...in 20 or 30 years, I may be an expert letterer!

That quote makes me feel better about the busy background.  When I look at this page, it makes me think that, despite all the noise and chaos and distractions around us, there's some small piece of ourselves that keeps pushing us towards what we want without us even realizing it!  I feel so woowoo/new age/hippie weirdo saying that, but hey, even I can be blindly optimistic from time to time!  (I think the beach vacation helped...) :)

For Journal 52 (J52) this week, the prompt was "Experiment", which has to be my favorite prompt so far!  I like to think of everything I do as an experiment...because if I mess up I can just giggle and say 'Oh well...it was just an experiment...' and then experiment some more!  Experiment and Play have to be in my top art journal words...right next to Try!  Because it's all fun and doesn't have to be serious...or, in my opinion, should NEVER be serious!  (But then again, I don't think there's a whole lot out there in the world that I actually do take seriously...haha...no really...)

At any rate, because I liked this prompt so much, I have two pages ready to show you (and possibly a couple more that I'm still working on).  First page:

"I found the colors and shapes of a perfect autumn."

For this page, I started out with blank watercolor paper and used gel medium through a stencil.  Then after it dried...or more correctly after I thought it dried...I sprayed it with Dylusions ( Lemon Zest, Pure Sunshine, and Squeezed Orange).  You can tell the that some of the gel medium was still wet, because it sucked up some of the Dylusions.  In the areas that are still white, that gel medium had already dried and I could just wipe the Dylusions away.  After that layer of Dylusions dried, I doodled in some of the spaces with a white China Marker and then sprayed those doodles with Dylusions (After Midnight, Cut Grass, and Postbox Red).  The page made me think of patterns found in plants and the colors made me think of the fall, so I wrote my little journaling on a piece of gold painted book page that I had left over from another piece and used gel medium to glue it down.  You can see that the gel medium reactivated the Dylusions and made swipe marks around my triangle...which reminded me of the tiny ripples that might happen when a leaf drops into water...another lovely autumn image!

And then there's this page:

"That was just a dream some of us had." -Joni Mitchell

I got the lyrics on the page from "California" by Joni Mitchell (who, for the record, has a lot of theft-worthy lyrics...I just love her!):

I REALLY like how this page turned out, and it was all because of experimenting.  You see, I've had this tube of gloss gel medium for a LONG time, and I really don't use it...because it's so shiny...ugh.  So I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I stuck down some stuff (like tissue paper, napkins, oil pastels, stamping, random papers, etc) in between thick layers of gloss gel medium?  And so that's what I did...I'd stick down napkin bits, then a thick layer of the gloss medium, wait for it to dry (which basically takes overnight, by the way...as in FOREVER to an impatient sort such as myself!), add some papers and stamping, another thick layer of gloss gel medium, and so on.  I think there are either three or four layers of gloss gel...  Then I used cheapie acrylic paints and made this girl, inspired yet again by Mindy Lacefield's art (I can't get her style out of my head!), and wrote Joni Mitchell's lyrics and called it done!  

I don't know how well you can see it, but this page looks VERY different with the thick layers of gloss medium in between as opposed to if I had just glued everything down thinly and painted over that.  In person, you can see how each layer kind of pops forward from the one beneath it!  Now, even though I called it done, I'm pondering whether I should add one more thick layer of gel medium over top of the girl and journaling?  But...I kind of like how the girl and the lyrics are matte compared to the high gloss of everything else...  It makes me want to make a second page like this one, and experiment with adding the final thick layer of gloss vs. not adding it...  Which means I'll have to go buy more gloss gel medium...even though the point was to get rid of what I had because I don't use it.  Now I think I might be warming up to it...  Oh, the perils of being an art journaler!!!

And finally, here are some more vacation photos (although not all of them...):

This is an outdoor corridor at Atalaya.  You can read a little bit about Atalaya itself and see more pictures HERE.  And if you go HERE and scroll down, you can watch a short video about Atalaya.

A big fantastic part of our trip was going to an art show held at Atalaya...I didn't get too may pictures from the show, because it's frowned upon by some artists, but I did get to take a picture of our favorite pieces that I'll share with you in another post...seriously, stay tuned for that, because the artwork is AWESOME!

This bird is, I believe, called an Anhinga.  You can find out why it's sitting like this if you read the "Behavior" section of THIS article!

Please take note of the sign in the picture above...and then take note of this:

I'm an alligator.

You can read a little bit of history about Huntington Beach State Park, which is where the Anhinga and alligator pictures were taken, HERE.  

All the rest of these pictures were taken at Brookgreen Gardens, which you can read about and see more of on their WEBSITE.

I love this picture...the sculpture, I believe entitled "Diana", was one of my favorites!

Brookgreen Gardens is SO cool, and there's so much to see, especially if you enjoy art or flowers/plants...I wish we would have had more time...and that I had worn a more comfy pair of shoes!

Sign describing the really old tree you're about to see in the next picture...

Me in front of the Live Oak tree that was mentioned in the sign above.  Now, I'm a big kind of gal, but look how huge that tree trunk is!  I think it's cool to know this tree was around when the Declaration of Independence was signed!  It reminds me of the Greek proverb "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." 

This is my mom with another Live Oak in the background...the Live Oaks in this section of the garden are all over 250 years old...  Mom said this particular Live Oak reminded her of a 'byser', which is what my 2 year old nephew, Remy, calls spiders...Can you tell that Mugga (what Remy calls my mom) and the little man spend a lot of time together?  I think we both wanted to see his reaction to Brookgreen Gardens...he has an appreciation for nature well beyond age!

And lastly, but definitely not leastly, here is one of the SEVERAL pictures I took of my favorite statue at Brookgreen, Don Quixote:

I wish you could have been there to see him with me!

I think it's really interesting how I've branched out internally since taking up art journaling.  Whereas before, I could look at artwork and tell you I liked it or didn't like it, I now look at these works in a different, deeper way!  The statue of Diana above makes me feel energized and alert...there's something about it that makes my blood move a little faster.  The statue of Don Quixote on the other hand, has a slower, more determined air to it.  It seems to me, that he and his horse, Rocinante, plod on towards their goal.  Despite the more melancholy nature of this statue, it seems hopeful, as though they are not giving up...It makes me root for them to make it.  

Sorry, that was just a little brain fart that came to me as I was looking over the pictures...

Did I mention I was NOT ready to come home...I could have spent a whole week just at Brookgreen Gardens itself with no problem...

I'll share more vacation photos with you next post, but for now, I'm off to try and get a little bit of paint on my fingers before bedtime!

And There She Is..

We can all breathe a little more easily...apparently I have not been body snatched just yet...my JOURNAL 52 (J52) page for this week has a face, words, and zero fussy cutting...it's back to my normal style for this one:

"You speak to me with words and I look at you with feelings."

The prompt for J52 this week was "Newspaper", and my friend Pamikins saved my bacon again this week, as she had sent me the piece of Chinese (I think...) newspaper that's in the background.  That's two goodies from Pamikins in my art in one week!  I must be thinking about her! :)

This prompt/page made me think about how I feel about the news, whether it's a newspaper or a news cast on TV...  which is I don't like it.  Here's my problem with the news in general: They show you a story about how 500 people died in some horrific way and then immediately follow that with a story about cute puppies...  News media is set up in a way that makes you not have to feel too bad that those 500 people died.  They give you information about something sad and frightening and then give you a feel good story to make you forget the terrible thing they told you mere minutes before.  The thing is, or how I think anyway, you should feel sad/angry/scared about things that are sad/enraging/frightening...but they take that away.

People want to point the finger at video games or violence in movies, but, in my opinion, nothing is more desensitizing than the news.  Which is why I never watch the news and the only parts of the newspaper I look at are the comics, the puzzles and Dear Abby...and the only reason I like Dear Abby is because it makes me think of this song by John Prine:

I know that really bad things happen in the world all the time, and I don't want people to constantly walk around scared and depressed and angry...but I do think that these are normal and healthy reactions to have...and I think that news media has taken away a big portion of people's sympathy/empathy and left us with a  FLATTENED AFFECT.  There has to be some kind of middle ground where you can still be empathetic but not be constantly afraid or sad...and if the news media can ever figure out where that middle ground is, then maybe I'll  start picking up the paper or watching it on TV.

In the meantime, I'll just continue doing what's worked for me thus far: recognizing that the world is a scary, depressing, and infuriating place most of the time and doing what little bit I can to make it better in whatever way I can, even if all I'm able to do is listen to a person with empathy in my heart.

A Happier Place

I've got a bunch of stuff to share this time.  

First, I'm going to share my Journal 52 (J52) page from last week.  The prompt was to "make a page that's all about time" and here's what I did:

"over time"

I got the inspiration for this page from this song, "Over Time" by Lucinda Williams (you may want to turn down your speakers, btw, because the tremolo on this song is pretty loud):

I had some sad-sackery insights into this page and song and was going to get all philosophical and blah, blah, blah...but then I stopped myself.

I've been on a binge of depressing stuff for WAY too long, and I'm going to try to pull myself out of that habit.  It gets old, you know?  

So I'm sorry for the long term wiener-ness that's been happening on the blog and let's try to have a binge of good stuff for a while, ok? :)

For this week's Documented Life (DLP) the prompt was to "use a white pen prominently on your page" and here's what I did:

The right page is actually a dark purple, but for some reason it's showing up funky...I don't know why...camera user error is my best guess...

This spread was a little bit of a battle for me.  I had done something else completely, but the pages sucked up the white pen and it was really faint in the end.  I decided to start over and painted over everything with acrylic paint.  I like it much better now.

I love the way the background shows through the paint on this and that the previous layer picked up too!

On the left page especially, you can see parts of the original stuff I had done (and the SmashBook image, a rotary phone, comes through as well)...I think that's pretty neat.  And I like the way the blue and orange set each other off so well...oh complimentary colors, you are making my day!

"Don't you know yet?  It is your light that lights the world." - Rumi

I saw that quote on Pinterest (where else?) and thought it was a good one to use with the white pen on dark backgrounds.  

Wouldn't that be such a nice thing to have someone say to you?  "Don't you know yet?"  I like that...  Sometimes we don't see our own good things...but someone out there does.  The "yet" gets me right in the feels, because he's saying 'one day you'll see it too'...that's such a nice thought!

And finally, this week's J52 prompt, "Create a page that has a lot of texture":

I was inspired by the fortune cookie fortune I got on Friday: "Now is a good time to explore the nearest coastline."

Can I just tell you how very stinking happy this piece makes me?  Cause OOH BABY!!!  I love looking at it!  Seriously, like running around the house holding it above my head going "TRA-LA-LA" because I love it that much!

Here are the textures I used (I tried to pack as many as I could into this one spread): crackle paint (thick layer for big cracks), coarse texture gel, glitter glue (cheapie kind) and Stickles  for the sand textures, gloss gel medium  (tinted and not tinted) and acrylic paint with micro beads added to it for the water, THIS aluminum foil technique for the palm tree trunk (I used brown paint instead of black), book pages, handmade paper, and crackle paint (thin layer for smaller cracks) for the palm leaves, and Crackle Accents, Enamel Accents (the black holes) and Souffle Pen (white accents on the holes) for the coconuts.

Be impressed because I cut all the shapes out freehand, and if you know me, you know how much I don't care for snipping! :)

I like it so much I have to show you two pictures, because this one shows better just how shiny the water is...ooh  I can't stand how much I like this!

I did this piece on Grungepaper (from Tim Holtz/Ranger).  The dimensions of it is 12x6, and so it's a weird shape compared to the rest of my J52 pages...it kind of makes me love it more...

On a side note, I don't know if anybody else is familiar with Grungepaper, but if you know of any technique tutorials using it, would you pass them along my way?  It's got such a strange feel to it that I'm not super sure how to work with it...it's not like paper, it's not like chip board, it's not like cardboard...it's strange stuff!  I'm at a loss as to how to use it in the 'intended' way...

At the end of this month, my mom and I are going to the beach for four days away, and I am so excited and ready to go!  I've been looking forward to this trip since last year!  And now it's just a few short weeks away and I am in kid-going-to-Disneyland mode...aka I wake up at 4 AM going "Is it today? Is it today? How much longer? Are we there yet?"  

It's probably a big part of the reason I like this spread so much...it reminds me of the beachy goodness just around the corner...even though there are no coconut palms where we are going (they have Palmetto palms...which are very short and a little anti-climactic if you are expecting the big tall palms)!  Coconuts or not, I'm ready for the beach to go!!!

Can You Help It?

First off, let me just say that I am a psychic...I will get back to this later.

My brain likes it when things circle around...as was the case for my two "MUST DO" art journal pages this week.  It was totally unintentional, and they may only connect in my head, so, as I tend to do, I may have to explain my thought process.

The prompt for this week's JOURNAL 52 is to "incorporate the alphabet into your page in some way"

"I put them together like I know I should, but I still don't know if I say what I mean."

The alphabet prompt gave me pause for a while...the only thing I knew I wanted to do was to incorporate two letter stencils that Jackie, my honey, sent me in a care package a while back.  So all I did was to grind up a little bit of Inktense blocks, add water and splatter with a paintbrush over the stencils...you can see at the top of the page, that stencil came out well...I covered over the other stencil with the face...but it was glorious too, if I do say so myself!  

Then I sat there and stared at the letters while they dried...they were being very mysterious as to what direction they wanted to go...so I stopped staring at them and went on to do my Documented Life spread.

For DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP), the prompt was to "add a face to your page".  Here's where I tell you that my psychic ability has been confirmed, because Saturday as I was walking to my computer to look up the DLP prompt, I thought to myself, "You know what would be funny?  If the prompt this week was faces..."  And then it was...  I know I draw faces all the time, but I swear to you this is the first time I have ever thought 'yeah, the prompt's gonna be faces'.  So there you go, I'm a psychic now...off to play the lotto and whatnot...

...but first, here's my spread:

Totally a psychic...
Also, this picture is the most true to color.

You want to know something weird?  I do faces ALL the time...but when the prompt was to do a face, I got a little nervous about it...what a dork!

Anyway, I finally just shut up and started drawing, using THIS girl as a reference.  I've actually used this picture twice now (I can't find the other piece though...perhaps I didn't post her? ...that's weird...)...I don't know what it is about this girl, but I like her.  

"You can cut all the flowers but you can't stop Spring from coming"
-Pablo Neruda

Everything but the writing was already on this page (it's from a Reflections paper pad called Regent Street).  I found that Pablo Neruda quote, and it immediately made me think of love.  I don't know what the poem is actually about (I can't even find it in full), but to me, it's talking about love...as all of Neruda's poems tend to do in my eyes.  

That quote brings to mind the helpless inevitability of some things.  No matter that we deny them, twist them, try to change them or uproot them, there are some things we cannot help but feel.  

And I'm no good with things that are like that.  I like my reasons.  I like rational thoughts.  I think that most things must have a logical explanation, and if I can find that explanation, I can change how I feel.  I can be in control again and put those things to rest.

But the truth is, that's not always so.  That's what the journaling on the page is about.  

"I can't help it...you make me want to be a much better person."

I've got this situation going on that I can't logic away.  

Ugh...feelings...  

There's a person who I feel pulled to...strongly...uncontrollably...inexplicably.  And no matter how much I distance myself mentally, physically, emotionally, I find myself getting snapped back by forces unseen...  (ooh, so mysterious *eye roll*)  It's like sliding down a steep hill, no matter how much I grasp at things to slow the progress, gravity keeps pushing me down and I can't stop.  I can't get a foothold to climb my way back up again.

This connects back to the Alphabet girl at the beginning, because of what I journaled on her page: "I put them together like I know I should, but I still don't know if I say what I mean."  Just a few posts ago, I was talking (out my butt, apparently) about being upset that people in my life couldn't explain why they loved me, even when I needed to hear it.  And now here I am saying something similar...I can tell you why I like this person, but I can't explain why I care so freaking much.  I can't explain why I feel like I do.  

The Alphabet girl is the thought that I talk so much but how much of it do I really mean?  Maybe I'm just a person who has to think out loud, and I say things that I'm not quite sure about in order to find out if I'm right or not...like a question I need someone else to answer too.

We put letters together to make words and words to make sentences to try to describe something in a way that someone else can understand.  I do that with my thoughts and feelings.  I try to string together these bits and pieces but sometimes I use the wrong letter and, in the end, I end up with something that I didn't quite mean in that way.    I try and I try again and suddenly realize I can't finish telling the story because there is no word to tell you exactly what I wanted to say.  Speech is limited.  So am I.

There are things, I suppose, that I can never put into words...things that I cannot justify or explain in any way other than this is how I feel.  A friend of mine likes to say "you can't help the way you feel".  I don't know if that's right...I want to say it must be true, because here I am telling you this little brain fart that seems like it agrees with that statement.  But I wonder if it's kind of a cop out.  Are feelings really these little monsters that we have no control over?  Wild beasts that we will never tame?  Or do we just say that because it's easier to assume it?  We can use it as an excuse and not have to try to change...is that the case?

As you may know, I'm a little new to the feelings game...so maybe you have some thoughts that could help me?  Can we control our feelings?  How?  Can you have feelings and as long as you never act on them, is that ok?  Or are we just biding our time until the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) situation happens and we can make our move?  Disney movies have us believe that we should follow our hearts, no matter what...but wouldn't it be a good thing to take the brain along for the ride too?

What's Left Over

The prompt for DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week was to "Use your under paper in a creative way."  In case you don't know, "under paper" is the paper you use so you don't get your desk/table/work surface all shmutz up with paint/spray ink/etc.  

The important words in that last sentence are you and your...because I don't really use under papers...  I just let my desk get all shmutzy...that way, later on, before I leave for work, my arms are celebration colored from all the spray inks that never quite wipe away completely...

In fact, I had to search high and low in my studio and I only came up with two under papers...

BUT...one of them ended up matching the opposite page in my DLP journal pretty well.  This was a completely unplanned event, so HUZZAH for serendipitous moments!

Here's what I ended up with:

Ta-da...

I found the quote on Pinterest, but apparently it's from a book/movie called "Captain Corelli's Mandolin".  I'm not sure which it's from, as I have never read/watched it, but according to Pinterest, it's from one or the other or possibly both...

Meh.

Though not my favorite face I've ever done, I do like her because she puts me in mind of Eilen Jewell, a singer/songwriter who I love, love, LOVE.  I didn't set out to make that happen, but when I finished the girl, that's who I immediately thought of.

Do they look a little alike, or is it all in my head?

I think I may have linked to one of her songs before, but here's another one that I can't seem to get enough of:

Sigh.  So melancholy and fantastic...I love it...

"Love itself is what's left over when being in love had burned away."

How fantastic is that scrapbook paper???  It's from a paper pack by DCWV called 'The Garden Tea Party'.  I find it EXTREMELY difficult to use because it's already so gorgeous...I always cringe a little when I do use it because I just want to stare at it lovingly and caress it and then put it safely away from my messiness.  I think this is my problem with all the scrapbook paper I have...I like it so much I don't want to use it...  And then I see more pretty papers and I must have those as well...and it leads to me having two huge shelves of scrapbook paper sitting there collecting dust...  Since space is at a premium in my studio,  I'm going to have to start knuckling down and forcing myself to use it more often.  I know this...but I still couldn't bring myself to cover up any of the focal image on this page.  

I think it worked out ok in this instance; the quote is enough.  That one little sentence is very profound, and, in my mind, the simple and sweet image contrasts well with the heavy words.  

This is one of those sentences I think everybody should pay attention to...or at least one that I wish I would have read as a young person.  I don't know if I would have appreciated it then though.

Only recently have I started to understand the expression about loving someone, but not being in love with them.  I guess, for me, it means being concerned for someone's future, but not wanting to be involved in that future...you want good things for a person, but don't want to be one of those good things.  *sigh*  It's hard to explain...

The quote from the journal page is like that too.  I don't know that I would have understood what it meant as a young person...not really.  When you're young, you have this idea that love will always be that initial, exciting, butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling...the one where everything the other person does is adorable and endearing.  But the truth is, real love isn't like that...or at least not often.  Real love is trudging through the muck together.  Real love is when those cute habits (Amy is so talkative, how sweet!) turn into annoying ones (Dear lord, does she ever shut up?!?).  Real love is when you can't stand listening to the other person for one more minute but you don't strangle them.  And yes, occasionally you still get butterflies in your stomach, but real love is getting from the moment of butterflies to the next moment of butterflies, and sometimes those moments are few and far between.  Real love is hard...and nobody seems to tell you that when you need to hear it most. 

Sometimes, when my husband tells me he loves me, I ask why.  And his response is "I don't know, I just do."  Every.Single.Time.  And I get so, so irritated.  Maybe it goes back to my former lack of emotions, to the days when I was only logical.  If you love me, there has to be a reason, there has to be something you can put your finger on and count and explain.  Why do you love me and not someone some other girl?  If you love me, why doesn't everyone love me?  And it bothers me that he can't come up with one stinking little reason.

  But maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe love is not like that for him.  Maybe he really doesn't know why.  

Sadly, that way of thinking is one I don't yet seem to be ready to understand.  Because if you asked me why I love someone, I could give you reasons.  I could explain to you that they make me laugh and they are kind and a million other reasons that make them different from anyone else.  Maybe what I'm looking for is the million reasons why I'm different.

I suppose that's a bit unfair.  As time goes by, I realize that there are people I find myself inexplicably drawn to.  Sure, I could name off a few reasons, but not enough to satisfy the question...not enough to explain why I care so deeply.  In that way, I suppose I'm not being fair to my husband when I try to force him to answer...

Love must come from a place so deep in our subconscious that we can't quite grasp it...like trying to remember a dream, or a word that's on the tip of your tongue but you just can't spit it out.

People are made of minutia, and I've found that there is a very thin line between the people you care for and the ones you don't.  Meaning I might love someone because they're funny, but I don't love someone else because they're not funny in the right way...  The differences between people are sometimes so small that we can't calculate them exactly, we only know that the differences are there.  Something you find endearing in one person, a quality that works well with all the other little details about them, may be a quality that you hate in someone with a different set of details.

As I get told, on a relatively regular basis, I think too much.  A friend at work likes to remind me that sometimes things just are the way they are and that's all...no reason to question, because facts are facts.  But, as I remind my friend, my brain doesn't work that way.  It would be a lot easier for me if it did.  Despite all the reasons that make it frustrating, my unquenchable brain thirst is one of the things that make me who I am...whether people find it annoying or endearing is up to them.  In combination with all my other qualities, it's one of my million reasons why I'm different.