Hello creative friend! I've been thinking about adding another blog post for some time, however since I am new to blogging I am still trying to figure out what to say, what to share and how often. I also struggle with finding time to do my art, much less keep a blog. But starting and keeping a blog is my 2014 resolution. I do not know how people find time to pursue artistic endeavors and work a full time job. I know I struggle with it. However, I plan on trying to commit to art journaling a little each day, even if for 10-15 minutes and post to my blog every week to talk about what I've been working on that week. Yikes! I am hoping that committing to art journaling daily will help me to accomplish more in my art and have something to talk about on my blog at the end of the week. And committing to blogging every week will help me to commit more, of what little bit of free time I have, to art journaling so I will have something to talk about each week to post.
As I have mentioned before, I have painted and drawn off and on throughout my life. But have always wanted to just play, experiment and have fun with art. However, all I knew before involved expensive paints and canvases and not conducive to playing and experimenting. Or at least without it costing a fortune. A friend introduced me to scrapbooking about 15 years ago. Approximately 3 years ago I found a program on television about scrapbooking. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer was a regular guest on the show and I loved her creative style. So I looked her up online, if you haven't checker her out, her website is here:
http://www.balzerdesigns.typepad.com/. I saw where she talked about something called art journaling and encouraging people to do it every day. I had never heard of art journaling before and after reading her posts realized that this is what I had been searching for my whole life. Some place where I can experiment and play and express myself through art. I got a journal and some art supplied and jumped right in, I was hooked.
I struggled at first with what to journal, how to journal and ideas for journaling. So in my quest to learn more about art journaling and searching for everything I could find on the subject - books, videos and online classes, I came across a year long art journaling class called Life Book so I signed up for Life Book 2013 and have been loving the journey. I have been learning a lot about myself and my art over the past year and have signed up again for Life Book 2014. If you have never heard of Life Book or checked it out, I would advise you do, especially if you want to learn new things, experiment with new techniques and grow as an artist. The website is located here:
http://willowing.ning.com/ and I highly recommend it. It is well worth the price.
I have been catching up with finishing out Life Book 2013 lessons and getting started with Life Book 2014. Today I have decided to share more of my favorite pages from Life Book 2013 and talk a bit about what I have learned from each.
From this page I learned to try something new, even if you don't think you will like it. I wasn't going to do this page originally, but decided to do it anyway and am very glad I did. It is one of my favorites and I learned not to prejudge whether you will like something or not, just try it, you may surprise yourself. I learned a lot of new techniques and learned some things about my style and what I like as an artist.
Again try something new, but also have fund and explore new mediums, techniques and working larger can have its benefits. This page is actually 6 pages taped together to make one large page that folds down to the size of my journal. I would have never attempted such a large layout on my own. I had fun creating it, learned more about what I like and my own personal style. I love the way this page turned out.
Try different materials, even materials you don't think will work. You never know how it is going to turn out, but sometimes it works. The butterfly on this page is made from wax paper. I would have never thought that wax paper would work on an art journaling page, but it does. So now I try all kinds to stuff on my pages. Some things work and some things don't. But isn't that what art journaling is all about anyway, experimenting to see what works, what doesn't work, what you like and what you don't like in your art.
Do not be afraid. I was intimidated by this page and procrastinated for some time. I can draw animals, but drawing people is very different. I finally decided to sit down one day and just do it and I love how it turned out. I also learned from this page that if you let the colors dry in between layers they will not turn into mud. I am good at making mud. Now I am more patient and dry layers in between completely before adding more. I also learned a few more techniques that I liked and plan to use again in a future page.
You can add drawing elements into your journal pages and they look great. I love to draw and have been drawing since preschool. But I would have never thought to try to add drawings into my journal pages. I plan to add more of my drawings into my journal pages in the future.
Again try something new and have fun. I used modeling paste on the main page with the bird, my first time ever, and love the effect and texture that it gives the page, which is hard to see in this picture unfortunately. I also found that through my art journaling I do not like creating pages on the backs of other pages. But I also did not like the back of the page to be blank. And I felt that a lot of left over paints and inks were being wasted. So in creating this page I just used up any left over paints and ink on my stamps on the adjacent page, second picture, and I have this lovely background page that matches the main art journal page I created and does not compete for attention with the Graphic Feather page on the other side (shown above).
Well I hope you enjoyed seeing what I have been up to lately. I do have a couple of new Life Book 2014 pages completed, but will share those at another time. I also have other journal pages I have created myself using some of the techniques I have learned from participating in Life Book classes, viewing online videos and reading books I've purchased on art journaling that I will share at another time. I have also starting keeping an art journaling idea book that I carry with me everywhere and when inspiration strikes me I write it down. It is getting filled up with lots of great ideas that I can't wait to try and share. I also have a page in mind, one of those inspirations that stuck me in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, that I want to do a video on, so that will be coming soon. Let me know what you think and share what you have learned from either online classes you've taken, videos you've seen or books you've read. I feel that learning from others helps you find what you like and what you don't like, by way of techniques, materials, colors and styles, and helps you learn more about yourself, your art and helps you in creating your own style. Until next week, happy art journaling.
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