My mom and dad would be sooooooooo disappointed in me. So, with the 4 year anniversary of my mom's death arriving tomorrow, Halloween, I have decided to not post tomorrow with my typical style of post. Instead, I shall post today and share my art journaling and sketchbook entries of the past week. I have always had a tendency to only go to my art in times of sadness and desperation. A way of helping me to work through horrible, difficult times when I can not find any other healthy way of coping with the feelings and thoughts racing through my overly busy mind. The end result being art that I love but that is not necessarily so happy to go back and look at later on. So with that being said and made aware to me, I am turning to my art to represent my feelings everyday, not just the bad days and or months. It may not be nearly as interesting, but it will at least better represent my life which is actually full of many, many happy and super joyful days!!! Especially now that I have my youngest living with me full time and have his wacky spirit filling my home with even more laughter and joy, not to mention beautiful music when he is playing on his drums.
My art will still help me through the tougher days, but maybe they won't seem so tough if I have been expressing myself everyday through my art. Grief is a crazy emotion that really just seems to get a tight grip on me when I indulge in it. At one moment I may think I have a grasp on it and then some stupid episode on a tv show will send me right over the edge or a song or some unfortunate event in the life of someone I barely know. I have a dear friend who just lost her sister-in-law to cancer. This beautiful soul leaves behind 3 precious, really young children and a loving husband along with many other family members and friends. Those 3 young children have lost their MOM at a horribly young age. I was so blessed to have my mom in my life for 46 years and I can barely stand to think of her not being here anymore. But then I think about those 3 children and wonder how I can be so selfish to be allowing myself to feel so sorry for myself when I was given the gift of 46 years with my mom and 49 years with my dad. It really puts a new perspective on how I see my situation.
Okay, so anyway, back to my happy thoughts. Here are some photos of my newest journal/sketchbook entries. There is no consistency to what they look like. My style changes based on what artist I am studying and what classes I am taking on-line. The only time "my" style shows up is when I don't look at any videos and just sit down and try to create an entry on my own. I really struggle with this which is why I am always taking classes and watching what other's techniques are. My hope is that if I make daily entries a priority then my own style will emerge and find itself. In the mean time, I am having great fun and that is a priority for me right now :)
Stabilo Pencil and water
My alter ego......Poulet Chateau and her best chick, Beatrice Feathers.
(above and below)
A moment in a day of the life of Poulet.
Still needs to have some color added to it, or, maybe not.
Some wonderful snail-mail that inspired my first entry in a new journal..... a gratitude page.
A wooden board rescued from my dad's workshop last year gets a few flowers and a stamped bird.
A very inexpensive mixed media journal gets a special cover to make it prettier. Vintage bark cloth and recycled ribbon from a gift make for a perfect altered journal cover.
A class taught by Pam Garrison on Creativebug led to this entry. Using a pen to make blind marks on a page, then going back and adding color into those shapes (above). Then going back in with the pen and adding in what you see (below). It took me some time to really just slow down and stare, but then I started to see the images. Super cool exercise and every time you get a different result. Loved this and did multiple pages of this technique.
Not particularly so great to look at, but I had fun with it.......laying down the background colors with acrylic paints and then just doodling some of my favorite things......birds and flowers and a few words that pop into my head. No real rhyme or reason to this.
Taking cues from Mary Ann Moss and Pam Garrison I tried my hand at just sketching what is right in front of me or just my surroundings. This was fun but I have no sense of proportion or really making things look 3 dimensional. But hey, practice makes perfect right? And I do like how things look when I do this and I have never been much of a "realist" at drawing for certain.
This one will get some color added to it some time today.
This is a pretty typical style for me when I am doing more journaling than actual "art journaling". Okay but kind of blah. Hoping to add some depth and direction over time as I make this more of a daily habit.
These next two paintings and pen drawings are from another exercise of Pam's. Putting down random colors and stroked of watercolor and then going back in with pen and drawing what you "see". The first one was pretty easy for me. I instantly saw ocean creatures and coral. Not many, but some. Then the other one was a huge struggle. Birds, "flowers" and a tiny childlike house. I drew what I saw but I am not so happy with either one. What I learned though is the more varied my brush strokes are, the better chance I will have of finding something in my painting without the use of magic mushrooms. (no mushrooms were harmed in this exercise I promise but from what i have heard, they would have probably helped me "see" things)
So that's that. Keep on smiling and enjoy your life.
Remember.......
Life is for the Living!!!!!!!
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