Slowly but surely….

I am adding some unexpected interest to my digital planner.

I’ll state this up front, the actual digital planner was not created by me. This planner was offered in the Friday Freebies on Boho Berry’s Digital Planners Facebook group. I have only made slight alterations to the planner so it will work for my personal use.

It first started when I decided to add a tracker for my bible reading. Then I thought I would try adding the daily weather. Things progressed from there.

These are my pages for yesterday and today, without my journaling. I inevitably fill up the white space with journaling about my day and my thoughts. I should tell you now, the artwork is NOT mine.

The graphics for the weather came from a Friday Freebie on, you guessed it (if you read my previous posts) Boho Berry’s Digital Planner Facebook group.

I did create the box with the list in it and the trackers at the bottom. Thanks to someone in the same group sharing how they could easily create trackers in a spreadsheet, copy them and paste them into their digital planner.

The flower on the list and the background fox image came from a coloring app I use on my phone, called Happy Color. After I completed coloring in the graphic, there is an option to share it so, I sent it to my computer and pasted it into my digital planner.

I really loved how the flower looked in my planner yesterday so today I decided to see how the images work in the background. It worked AMAZINGLY!! So now, I can capture some details about my day without having to say anything, by choosing one of the pictures I color that day and placing it into my planner.

None of this is difficult to do. Some of it requires using a couple different applications. I had a few obstacles to overcome, like acquiring Affinity Designer. If push came to shove, I could have done most everything in my older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements but the process takes far longer and is much more complicated. I discovered Affinity has all its products on sale so I jumped on it and gave it to myself (a few days early) for a Christmas present.

I did have one issue in trying to figure out how to make the background of the images transparent in Affinity Designer but a quick google search took me to the Forums on Affinity where someone had already asked the question and received an answer. Again, it is a very simple process. It was just a matter of finding where in Designer it could be done. This wasn’t one that would have been intuitively obvious. I might never have found it if I hadn’t searched online for the answer. Once learned though, it is quick and simple and I don’t have to use a magic tool to click in all the small areas where I want the background transparent.

There is at least one huge difference between Adobe Photoshop Elements (I have version 10), and Affinity Designer. Affinity Designer will import a PDF file and build layers. If I open a PDF file in Affinity Designer it shows a dialogue box where you can import ALL pages or select a page to import. I usually select one page. Designer builds layers for each element in the page. How quickly Affinity Designer does this is amazing.

My version of Adobe Photoshop Elements does NOT build layers. It opens a single page onto one layer which means there are NO elements which can be altered.

The layers Affinity Designer creates are great because each element is given a layer. I can then select an element and alter it if I want to change part of it. For instance, in the digital planner, if I want to change the text on a tab, all I have to do is select the text and change it. Same with the tab, if I want to change the color, I can do that as well. I can alter the shape of the tabs or any part of the page.

In Adobe Photoshop Elements, I’m either stuck with the shape and design or find a way to put a layer over it to cover it with what I want. Adobe Photoshop Elements is also VERY slow in rasterizing the PDF file.

I know this functionality of creating a layers from a PDF file so all the elements can be altered can create an ethical dilemma for designers. When I first came across digital planners, I wanted to know how they worked. Knowing how they work, also helps me to know what software was needed to make them work. I needed to know this because I was wanting to use them on my Windows desktop, not an Android table or an iPad. Watching some of Boho Berry’s videos gave me enough information to find some software to play with but it took a lot of searching to find the RIGHT software for the job I wanted them to do.

The other thing watching her videos did was help me to understand the planners are built by using layers upon layers to achieve the effect. I wasn’t sure how deeply this went until I discovered Affinity Designer. Breaking a single page down into ALL of its layers gave me the information I needed.

These planners take a lot of work to build. What Kara and others have built took a lot of time. Seeing all the layers in Affinity Designer for just one page makes me appreciate all the HARD work the creator of the planner did to develop it.

Affinity Designer enables me to alter an existing PDF to make it the way I want it. But it also opens up a possible ethical situation if someone should use it to take someone else’s design and change a portion of it and then call it their own. As an artist, I would never do that. It bothers me immensely when I hear of other “artists” taking someone’s work and either not crediting the original artist and letting people assume they own it or altering it slightly and then claiming it as theirs. They are not artists in my opinion.

I may one day attempt to create my own digital planner. If I did, I would create it from scratch. But right now I’m just happy to be able to use a planner someone else built for my own personal use so I can determine whether this is a daily practice I will continue with or if it will peter out like it did when I tried creating my own bullet journal. Working with a bullet journal lasted maybe six months before it became old.

I had, also developed an issue with my wrist due to all the handwriting I was doing. Switching to using the computer to type out my journal digitally has allowed my wrist to heal. I,also, learned the benefit of being able to keep up with my thoughts through typing. Many of my thoughts wouldn’t end up on paper because I couldn’t write fast enough.

I am an interesting balance of analytical/logical and creative/abstract. This becomes apparent when I consider what I’m drawn towards. I love math, especially algebra and geometric shapes. I think things through logically. I’m always wanting to create things with my hands. I knit and crochet, draw, paint, write stories and poetry along with my journaling. Once I learn how to do something I then find ways to tweak it, especially in my handmade items, like knitting. Computers have enabled me to combine both worlds which is why I think digital planners/journals will be my forever “go to” for expressing myself.

If an app is ever created which will allow a user to work completely within one app with their digital planner, I can see using these digital planners by everyone from church leaders/pastors to, business leaders, government aides and even children with their school work. I have been able to incorporate pages into my planner from a Bible in PDF format, have a blank page opposite where I write my notes, highlight the bible text, circle, underline and add supporting pictures and whatever else someone does to make it stand out. AND… it is all searchable in the PDF document once it is saved, including any annotations and notes. This can’t be done in hand written notes or hard copy books. I can add links to the PDF document as well so a reference can be found easily. In essence, these planners are becoming archival information of people lives and the knowledge they gather for themselves.

WE ARE CREATING OUR OWN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS.

For someone who didn’t excel in history class, I find this fascinating.

 

 

I’m going digital, more than ever…

My life took an interesting turn. An unexpected turn. Have you ever just come across something which catches your attention and you think, “Oh, that’s interesting, I’ll take a quick look”, even though you have no plans to use it or do whatever it is that caught your attention and suddenly find yourself sucked into a deep rabbit hole like in Alice in Wonderland?

Well…. that was me this past week or so, and I think I’m still there. 🤪

So here is what happened.

I was quietly and systematically working on cataloguing many of the resources I have available to me and often loose track of, so I started listing them in a spreadsheet. I am subscribed to numerous YouTubers for various reasons, so I added a spreadsheet to list them and their area of expertise so I could easily find some videos on particular topics I want to review or learn. In the process of cataloguing them, I would scan their list of videos so I could appropriately categorize them. Well, of course, inevitably, I found myself staring at a video which set off all sorts of bells and whistles in my head.

I can’t really say I haven’t been at least partially digital because I do most of my journal writing digitally. Manually writing can cause a flareup in my wrist which can become very painful. I have been using MS Word for my journal and though I can do a lot in it, I often find myself feeling like there has to be a better way. I tried OneNote and Evernote but didn’t like them. I like MS Word because I can search easily to find something I wrote about and wanted to go back to. Besides running into a repeated issue which bugs me, I also know eventually Microsoft products will go out the door on my system because they are no longer in my budget. Things like this is always working in the background of my thoughts usually waiting for something to trigger a new idea. This is what happened when I saw the title of the video, “Creating a Digital Journal with Boho Berry Freebies”.

The video is only 10:23 minutes long, but it is chock full of helpful information. I don’t have an iPad. I do have an iPhone but I wouldn’t do something like this on my phone. I would probably go blind trying to see what I wanted to do because of the tiny screen. This video did one thing. It sparked the neurons of my tiny brain and sent me down a path of trying to find out if anything like what Kara showed in the video could be done on a Windows desktop computer.

And BAMB! down the deep dark rabbit hole I plunged.

First, I joined Boho Berry’s Facebook group “Boho Berry Digital Planners” so I would have access to other people who do digital planners and see if anyone is using them from a Windows platform. Let me tell you, there are, but not very many and it seems they had just as many questions as I did. I started to discover working from a desktop may not be as user friendly as it is working from an iPad, at least for digital planners. Also, it looked like, I would have to be willing to spend some money for some of the apps mentioned by others, which right now I’m not. My funds are limited so I wanted to see what I could do under these limited conditions.

Since November 28th when I ran across Boho Berry’s video, I have had moments of great frustration, and moments of “Ah.. Ha”s and moments of “by gosh, I think I got it!”. To only run this repeatedly over the following days until I arrived at my destination today.

First, I need to say that I’m doing two types of journaling. The first is a very minimal bullet journal, where I have a month calendar, a daily “What I did today” and then anything I want to write about my day. The second is my bible journal where I make notes about my daily bible reading and my thoughts regarding what I read and how it applies to me. I needed a solution for both of these.

You might wonder why I would move away from actual paper journals and notebooks, especially with my love of creating journals. I started originally writing in physical journals and I always had the same issue: FINDING SOMETHING I WROTE AND WANTED TO REFER BACK TO. Even if I did indexing which I tried to do when I first started to bullet journal, my indexes wouldn’t be intuitive enough to help me find what I one day wanted to search for. This is why MS Word became my “goto” for journaling. Since using MS Word, I have been able to successfully find every entry I wanted to refer back to for whatever reason by using the search option.

Here is what I felt I needed in a digital journal:

• all content had to be searchable
• it had to be easy to add text to
• text had to be easily formatted
• had to be able to add calendars
• calendars had to be editable
• graphics had to be easily added
• had to be able to add and edit internal and external hyperlinks
• it had to be appealing to look at
• PDF format, this has become a universal format which can be read from most applications and various platforms, the format has to be viewable years down the road

What I discovered is not one single product could do ALL of these things. Even Kara (Boho Berry) has to use two or more apps to accomplish what she wants to do in her digital journal.

At first, I didn’t think I would ever switch to a digital planner like the one shown in Boho Berry’s video. But I investigated anyway. The main reason I was investigating was to find out if something similar would work for what I needed.  I looked at the planners Kara has but didn’t want to pay for one without knowing if I could use them on my desktop computer.

I searched for free digital planners. There are a few out there and I found one I decided to test with. This one I found through the Friday Freebies in the Boho Berry Facebook group. I knew working with a free digital planner would require more work than one I would pay for but I also knew I would learn a lot more by altering things myself than buying one with all the bells and whistles.

My biggest obstacle was finding programs to do what so many videos show you can do using an iPad. I will tell you this was the most frustrating part of my research. Especially, since I didn’t want to fork over any money or a lot of money. Adobe could certainly do the job but so many big software companies have switched to cloud based applications with monthly or yearly subscription fees. Fees I can’t afford. I’m still old school. I want to buy a software program that costs me a one-time fee and have done with it and run it on my computer, not on a cloud where my data resides on someone else’s hardware.

It took some work but I was finally able to determine there is a way using my Windows desktop computer to create, maintain, update and enhance digital planners in a PDF format. What is even better, I can do so inexpensively. Once I figured out the process, it is also easy to do, though like Kara,  I have to switch between two or three applications to make it all possible. Here is what I can do:

• create a digital journal from scratch
• alter an existing digital journal (PDF format) or use it as it is
• copy/add/delete/insert pages, either from existing pages in a journal, blank or newly created from scratch
• add graphics
• add/delete/edit hyperlinks (internal locations and external locations)
• create my own layouts, or add layouts others have created
• add/format/delete/highlight/underline/etc. text
• use various fonts already available from my computer
• search ALL text, including any annotations I made or text pre-existing in the PDF document
• view digital planner from PDF viewers including Adobe Reader (also searches text and annotations)
• insert calendars and add text and images to the calendar
• create lists like ToDo list

I am sure I haven’t touched on everything that can be done. The hardest part was finding a program that would provide the ability to add hyperlinks. Here are three of my spreads I have created. I have blurred out some of my journaling for personal reasons:

This first image is my daily journal, as I stated, I blurred out my writing for personal reasons. The “What I Did Today” is an image I add to the page and then fill in with text as I do things during the day and I use the marker tool to color the box green to show it is completed. The rest is all free formed text I write throughout my day.

This next image is my December calendar. The calendar came in the free digital planner without dates, no text or images (just the lines creating the boxes). All the images I added are images (free for personal use, there are too many to quote sources, they can easily be found searching Christmas images on google) I found on the web. As the month progresses I add hyperlinks to the date so I can quickly go to my daily journal page. For instance, for December 5th, I can click on the 5 in the calendar and I’ll be switched to the page displayed above in the graphic for my 5 December daily. I enter what chapter of the bible I studied that day and insert a link to go to the journal page for my bible study (my bible study journal and daily planner are in the same file together. If I click on Job 9 & 10 for 6December, I’ll be taken to the next image below.

All graphics were found online and were labeled as free for personal use.

For my bible study, I found an NLT Bible online in a PDF format that was free for personal use.  I only discovered today, I could separate out the chapter I study and insert it into my digital journal so on one page I have the scripture I’m reading and the opposite page is blank where I can add my notes and thoughts for that day’s reading.

Discovering I could insert bible pages into my journal for my bible study was the “cat’s meow” so to speak. It is the frosting on the cake, as it were. I haven’t done it here yet but I can also highlight or underline the scripture text, and I can also add arrows or pointers from my notes to the scripture. The highlights and arrows can be created in different colors, so if you like to color code your bible notes, it can be done here as well.

Dare I say, I am IN LOVE with digital journals! The calendar gives you an idea of how creative someone can get in the journal. I could add my own artwork (digital or scanned copies) or search online for art to make my planner as beautiful as I want it.

Other than one program, all the editing done to create these pages was done via free software. I am still deciding whether to purchase the one that is not free. Even so, it is under $70 and a one-time purchase (not a subscription).

It didn’t take long to switch to this digital journal format. I had planned on starting the new year by trying out the digital journal but the bug had embedded itself deep. On 2 December I decided to just start trying it out for the month of December to see if I even liked it. From that moment on, I didn’t go back to MS Word, except to refer to what I had already written there.

The last day in my MS Word journal where I did any journaling was 1 December at 12:45am (so technically 2 December). What had finally inspired me to not wait was a bug I have run across in MS Word which bugs me and it happened two times in two days. The first time it happened I ran the repair option and it fixed the issue. The next day when it happened again, I tried the repair option and it didn’t fix it. The issue I’m mentioning is where the cursor doesn’t reflect on the screen the movement associated with the space key or the enter key. If I press the space key, the cursor doesn’t move. If I press the enter key, the cursor moves about two spaces to the right, not to the next line. When I start typing the cursor will jump to the location it is supposed to be in and the letters appear where they should go. This is frustrating because I rely visually on the cursor to be where it is supposed to be, if it doesn’t move as in the space key being pressed, then I’m pressing it a second or third time and end up with too many spaces in my sentence, or too many lines between paragraphs if it is the enter key. This is frustrating when someone is trying to enter data quickly which I do when I’m journaling.

I have read possible fixes to the issue which requires copying the data into a new document but my journal in MS Word for 2018 is 540 pages as of 1 December, so yeah, not doing it. With the digital journal, I will watch for any issues with the file getting large and possibly split it into quarterly or half year journals.

So yeah, now I’m digital. My calendar and bible study notes were all in paper journals, now they will be digital journals. I’ll still have real journals but they will be art journals. This takes the pressure off of me to have journals for writing. Now they can all be used with various mediums to create art in ALL the physical journals I have.

The great thing about digital journaling is once I have a planner I don’t really have to purchase another one. Keep the original file untouched. Use it as a template, then create whatever you want out of it. I won’t have to buy paper anymore to write on. My need to be creative on paper will be satisfied by my art journaling. My daughter will have a digital record of my life that she can literally put in her pocket. My need to be creative both digitally and physically is met.

The only thing I feel is missing in the digital journal is the appearance of turning the page. The software I use doesn’t do that. It also doesn’t swipe because I’m not using a touchscreen like the iPad has. The image may look like a book but it doesn’t mimic page turning. Maybe one day it will.

If you are interested in learning more about how I created my journal and pages, leave a comment below.

 

Book of Journals

I am so excited about something I have been working on. But first some background…

I think I have been writing and creating my entire life, some of it has ended up in journals or diaries, or in boxes, though from my childhood most have vanished somewhere into the black hole that happens sometimes with childhood things. I haven’t stopped writing or creating but I did step away from art. A few years ago when I decided to return to my art, I wanted to be better organized with my writing and my artwork. I had this vague idea of trying to find a book which would allow for proper organization and storage. After searching and never finding what I wanted, I stopped looking for something that was already made and decided to see if I could learn how to make it.

This lead me down a path of first learning to make scrapbooks. I’m not one to do much with photos other than to shove them into a box or put a couple in frames. I did learn something about making scrapbooks. I LOVED THE PROCESS of making them!  Decorating, however, posed a challenge. I can’t say I have ever had a great mind for decorating, so I set this aside. The scrapbooks I did make ended up being storage for my small tangle pieces of art because they were the perfect size, almost like photos.

I moved on to learn how to make my own handmade journals from the variety of paper available. And YES, I fell in LOVE with creating my own journals! I have several blank ones awaiting my attention. If I didn’t hold myself in check, or have financial restrictions I’m sure I would have a wall full of plain journals awaiting my attention.  I learned several binding methods from Kiala Givehand, and Sea Lemon and possibly a dozen other sources on YouTube.

Lately, I followed Kiala Givehand’s “7 Books in 7 Days” on Instagram and ended up purchasing the course for the additional content. As I worked on creating the books (I made two of each, one for me and one for my daughter) my thoughts returned to the idea which had been swimming around in my thoughts way back when. I wanted a place to store these journals.

I put my powerful brain to work gathering all the information I had learned over the past couple of years to see if I could come up with a way to create a storage place. In 2016, I had purchased a tutorial from Scrappin Rabbit on her scrapbook journal. In this scrapbook, she permanently attaches handmade journals to the pages. This was a great start to my idea but I wanted the journals to be removable. And no, the traveler type covers with elastic binding for removal journals wasn’t what I was looking for.

Kiala’s journals in her “7 Books in 7 Days” were perfect size to experiment with. I found most could be stored in the pockets I had learned to make for scrapbooking. For the thicker handmade journals I decided to try and make a more dimensional pocket.

Here are the books I made from Kiala’s class, some I added color to and some are still just plain paper due to time and not knowing what I wanted to use them for as of yet.

The first book I made was the french door journal:

I added some color to mine with Prang watercolor paint. On a few of the pages I started penciling in ideas for what I wanted to put on the pages. I am on a spiritual journey so it has been predominant in my artwork lately. This seems to be the direction I am going in with this one.

 

The next journal is what she called a clutch journal:

I again used my Prang watercolors to give it some color. My plans for this journal is to write a letter, most likely to God.

This is the book I made using the chain stitch binding from Kiala’s lesson which was the next book in the series. I made it with a 1/4″ spine. This was the big challenge on how this would fit into the book I wanted to make, so I decided to attempt to make a pocket attached to the page which  was 1/4″ in depth. Here is a picture of the pocket.

Next came the washi journal:

I wasn’t sure how this one would hold up. I haven’t had much luck with my washi tape sticking permanently so only time will tell with this one.

 

 

 

 

 

The window journal came next:

I added some color again with my Prang watercolor paint.

 

 

 

 

Then the meandering journal:

Followed by the back-to-back journal:

As you can see with the chain stitched journal, I started working on designing the book before I completed making all of these journals. I had decided to use the process I learned for making scrapbooks from Kathy King and Scrappin Rabbit (as well as, a thousand other videos I watched on YouTube over the years).

This is the unfinished scrapbook. I created a video flip through and posted it on YouTube for anyone who wants to see a flip through. Please forgive the amateurish video. I hope it doesn’t cause anyone issues with motion sickness. I don’t have anything to mount my phone on for taking the video so I’m holding it while recording. The volume maybe quite low as well. I may have to invest in something to make it easier to create these videos if I do more of them but I hadn’t planned on ever making any so I didn’t invest in any equipment. The two videos I made were only made because it was easier to show what I created in a video than to take millions of photos.

The book is no where near finished. Most of the pages are not decorated. The few I did decorate was only because I needed to decorate the main page before adding the pocket or other elements. My supply of decorative paper is pretty limited and since this was really a prototype just to see if it would work out, I didn’t want to spend the money on buying decorative paper. In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t be buying any decorative paper in the future. I will, most likely, make my own using my art supplies and tools.

I absolutely LOVE how this book turned out. I especially love the pockets that have a flap and close with a magnet and just love how the books slide in and out of the pockets. Now that I see this one with the pages in the cover, I’m coming up with other ideas to make this even better. OH, BOY, are the ideas flowing.  I need to jot them down before I lose them completely.

And in case you are wondering, yes, I did jot down my ideas. If I didn’t have so many other things on my plate right now, I would be jumping into those ideas full tilt to see if they would work.

New idea: Faith Journal

My art  journey is morphing in a way I never expected or could have foreseen. It is quickly becoming intertwined with my faith. My searches now, not only include various art techniques but also art related to bible journaling and bible study.

I have a bible that is designed for bible journaling and has in some of its margins artwork to color in if, I desire to do so. Adding my own artwork isn’t happening but maybe it will in the future.

I did do some testing of a few different mediums in my bible. I discovered a couple of interesting facts. Prang watercolors bleed through the paper. They also bleed through clear gesso! Even 3 layers of clear gesso!!! Daler Rowney watercolors from a tube, DO NOT bleed through unprepped (no gesso) bible pages!!!!!! Sorry for all the exclamation points but I found this rather AMAZING. I may have to invest in better quality watercolors if I want to use them in my bible and not have to prep the pages with gesso. I currently prep them with clear gesso so I can use sharpie markers or other markers, for highlighting or coloring, otherwise they will bleed through the page. I did a test on an untreated page using Inktense pencils, by using a waterbrush and pulling color from the pencil tip and painting it on the page. It has a high ghosting factor, not really a bleed through but possibly could if the application is too heavy. I plan to work with them more in my bible at some point and test them over clear gesso. I was quite frankly amazed regarding what would or would not bleed through the untreated pages of a bible considering how thin they are. I had expected everything to bleed through except maybe ballpoint pen or pencils.

Maybe some day I’ll do my own art in my bible.

Right now, I am more focused on my bible studies. From my searches I came upon a method some people use during their studies. I am more of a writer/note taker when it comes to studying than I am an doodler/artist creating pictures to help me remember what I’ve read. This helped me to understand why I felt a bit blocked when I tried to add artwork to my bible. Instead of drawing, I highlight and write in colorful text which in itself is pretty to my eyes.

I often find myself intrigued by how God influences my life. I find myself drawn towards things not understanding why. I was drawn to sign up for a free tutorial called Magical Manifesting Journal tutorial which I ran across on Facebook. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted yet another tutorial about manifesting. First, because I’ve tried it before with little to no success and secondly, because of my renewed faith in God. I won’t go into the spiritual implications of this. Just know I’m rethinking some of the things I have dabbled in over the years and whether they are appropriate in my life now. Manifesting is one of these things I’m reconsidering so I was intrigued as to why I would be pulled towards this course. I truly believe this was God’s influence, so he could show me how I can alter something that may seem inappropriate for my faith and make it appropriate and supportive of my changes in my life.  I believe he uses everything he can to bring us into his chosen path for us. And this is just one example.

I went ahead and signed up for the tutorial. I watched all the videos. As I reached the end of the videos, I realized I could still use the idea of the manifesting journal but altar it slightly. I had to first understand what it was I wanted. I want to build a closer relationship with God. I needed something which I could turn to and have it help restore my faith or turn my thoughts from feelings of negativity to positive feelings. I, all too often, sink into despair and depression when life just doesn’t seem to be going well for me. I wanted a quick reference to particular versus which resonate with me and help me on my spiritual journey.

So… I altered the idea of a manifesting journal to a faith journal.

What I would do is create a simple booklet from one page. You know, one of those one page wonders, where you fold a large sheet of paper into a booklet containing about 8 pages, including front and back cover. Adhering the bottom edge of the pages and not the top or sides, creates pockets, which I’ll show in another post when I start to create items to insert into the pockets.

Here is what I have created so far. It isn’t done yet, but I was so excited about how this is turning out, I wanted to share it, in case, anyone else might want to try it as well.

Front Cover

 

Page 1 and 2

  Pages 1 through 4 were inspired from last Sunday’s sermon at CAC.

Page 1: “when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” James 1:2

Page 2: “when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” James 1:3

The point of the journal is to add scripture which I can refer to when my faith begins to wain or I feel challenged and need to feel God’s support. Since I am currently facing some personal challenges these particular verses in James resonated with me and help to give me hope that there is a purpose behind these challenges.

Page 3 and 4

Page 3: “when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” James 1:4

Page 4: “if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you” James 1:5

Page 5 came from my daily reading from a week or so ago. “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you.” 2 Kings 20:5  You might recognize it from the art journal page I showed in my previous blog. This one gives me hope that God hears my prayers and is actively helping me.

Page 5 and 6

I still have page 6 and the back cover where I can add more scripture as I come across something that resonates with me. But don’t think this is all I have room for. As I mentioned earlier, if I only glue the bottom edges of the pages together it will  leave the sides of a couple pages and the top of a couple other pages open forming pockets. I can add decorated tags or decorated paper which I can also add scripture to and store in the pockets, plus I could add tip-ins or fold-outs for even more space to add scripture. This means I have a lot more I can add to this journal. When I feel it is full, I can create another one.

Back Cover

For the text I found free fonts online I can download for personal use. I printed the scripture on computer paper and tore them out and used a bit of slightly watered down glue to adhere them to the page.

The background is several layers. First, was a collage of different paper, text, decorative paper and music pages. Next came a layer of napkins, followed by a layer of maybe 4 different colors of paint some of them metallic. The last layer was some stamping and mark making using different items like bubble wrap, a lid, the side of a gift card and so forth. I did paint the back of the page, partly to help it lay flat and secondly so the inside of the pockets wouldn’t just be white.

These pages are not done. I plan to do something to help the white paper, with the text printed on it, to blend into the background more, just haven’t settled on what I’ll do yet.  I think I want some embellishments, but again I’m not sure what. Ideas are flowing. I just need to settle on which ones I want to try and just how far I’ll take this project.

I finally feel like I’m finding a focus for my artwork, which is such a wonderful feeling.

God, artwork, dreams and reality….

Wow, time seems to be having quite a bit of fun with me since my last post on the 3rd of April. My work schedule seems to reflect this. I had one day off on the 3rd, worked 1 day, then 2 days off, worked 1 day, then 2 more days off, then worked 8 days. During each of the two days I had work done on my car, my windshield replaced, and multiple recall items replaced. Thankfully, my insurance covered the windshield and the recall items didn’t cost me anything. While the car was worked on I worked hard doing a much needed cleaning of our home. I still have a bit more to do, however, it feels good that a majority of it has been done. In the midst of all of this I did some artwork, art journaling, designing and focused on a class and some other studying. I’m going to talk about these but not necessarily in that order.

I’ll tackle the studying part first, and if you aren’t interested feel free to skip down to the next topic.

STUDYING:

I’ll give a bit of background. I grew up protestant with a leaning towards Baptist and later non-denomination Christian. The very first church I remember going to wasn’t either one of these, and I’m not sure what denomination it was considered. I remember enjoying Church there because there was no preacher, just elders who ran the church and on occasion invited speakers to our Sunday services. Generally, Sunday service for the family was conducted with someone reading a passage from the bible and different members standing and reading from the bible, intermixed with singing gospel songs. There wasn’t anyone to tell us how to interpret the scripture. Even Sunday school for the kids was an adult reading from the Bible and then talking to the children about what was read, generally they were well known stories, like Noah and the Ark. I believe this early introduction to this type of congregation influenced my opinion of churches later on. I’m not sure what led my parents to switch from that church to a Baptist church but they did. The difference between the two was extreme though as a young person I wasn’t adept at working out why when I had been taught from an early age to not question my parents or adults. I just know I couldn’t fully integrate into the way these later churches were run, not even the non-denominational churches and I tried several of them. This was no reflection upon my belief in God, only in the very nature of how Churches are run and Preachers preach their sermons.

With this being said, it has been years since I stepped into a church. It never fails though that each time I have, I felt there was something fundamentally wrong, because every time I walked out of church I felt worse than when I walked into it. As the years passed I stopped attending church even though I didn’t stop believing in God. I have developed different names to represent God, such as, Universe, which usually is my way of saying Universal Intelligence, or Greater Being, or Great Unknown, and so forth. This is just my way of accepting that there is something unknowable that is greater than all of us. I consider myself spiritual and not religious.

When I am faced with the need to understand something, I don’t rely on what other people say or believe. That has never been my way. Consequently, I research, I observe, I experiment, and I do whatever I can to satisfy that need to understand. It doesn’t matter the topic. Whether it is how a certain art supply will work with or not work with another art supply, or if it is what makes certain people tick or respond in the way they do, including myself, and yes this includes understanding God.

I am often confused as to why I am driven to the need to understand something when I am not at other times. For instance, creativity has always been a part of my life. Throughout my life I’ve used various ways to bring creativity into it. Art, such as drawing and painting, were not part of this between the end of high school and until a few years ago. Oh, for brief periods of only a day or two or a week at the most I might have tried to get back into sketching but I was never driven to understand my need for it until a few years ago. Just as I’m driven now to understand more about God or more importantly my beliefs after years of being absent from any church.

I used to think those years were absent of all desire to understand. When I look back on it now, I believe those years were my period to observe and sometimes experiment. Experimenting was rare however. Observing takes years, at least my way of observing takes years because I’m observing everything around me and storing up inside, my response to what I have observed. Once enough is stored, it then drives me to research, and study whatever I can find, in order to understand what I have observed and continue to observe.

You are probably wondering why or how all of this is related to my belief in God. Well, I’ve spent my whole life observing and storing up information. Now, I am driven to try and understand which means research. I often make this decision subconsciously which the World or Universe, or if you prefer, God responds to. I had no sooner made this decision subconsciously when a resource was made known to me. That resource is a 5 year journey called “Thru the Bible” which contains five years of recordings with Dr. J. Vernon McGee where he takes you through the whole Bible. I tried several times to read the Bible on my own but usually got discouraged and stopped. I don’t think I made it through more than a couple books on my own.

This journey I began on the 5th of April is different from all my other attempts to read the Bible from the beginning to the end. I’m not saying I agree with everything McGee says in the recordings but what I am finding is because these are recordings I’m able to slow down, listen to what he says about the chapter I read, and allow my own intelligence and spiritual guidance to come to my own interpretation. I write down notes which contains my questions, how I understand what I read or what I’m lead to understand.

When I say lead, I’m not talking about just McGee’s comments because more often than not his comments spark more questions which are often not in alignment with his interpretation. I’m finally understanding that I am quite literal. If McGee’s interpretation contains within it something that is not stated in the scripture I just read and he gives no supporting scripture, I tend to discard his interpretation or parts of it, unless I come across scripture that later supports his interpretation. I know he comes from years and years of study, schooling and experience but that doesn’t mean he is right in everything he says. In fact, I often find he has very condescending and what I feel are judgemental statements which tend to rub me the wrong way. I take that as a sign to explore more and so I do.

I have considered not listening any further to his recordings, however, if I did, then I would not have the catalyst I need. I know this because I start my study period by first reading the chapter. After reading the chapter I usually have little insight. When I follow that by listening to the recordings for that chapter while making notes, I gain more insight and understanding. It doesn’t stop there, sometimes the rest of my day I find myself often contemplating what I am learning. If I only read the chapter I would probably lose out on a good 75% of what I learn when I allow McGee’s comments to trigger the opening of doors to further understanding.

This will be a three to five year journey of studying the Bible (from beginning to end) and possibly other resources as I come across them. I am curious if this will somehow work its way into my artwork and whether it will become a life long journey. I do know this journey will not be an easy one because it has already created some amazing shifts in my understanding and reality.

When I enter into something that creates such major shifts, time flows strangely and the world around me alters in unexpected ways.

ARTWORK:

Last time, I started a page in my watercolor art journal, in an attempt to go lighter with the watercolor pigments that I did on my previous page. I had shown this picture of the first layer of watercolor:

Though the image shows a light blue in the colors there really wasn’t any. It was the untouched watercolor paper or areas barely touched by paint that showed up with a blue tint. Seeing this in the photo made me want to play with adding other colors.

You can see in the below image where I added some blue and some more yellow. In some places where the blue touched yellow, the mix created a green or blue-green color. I let some of the blue run or drip. I then let it dry.

Once it was dry, I used a graphite pencil to create some shapes, then used white acrylic paint around the shapes, trying to bring them forward. I didn’t want to cover the whole background with this layer of white so I left some areas alone.

It has probably been a week since I worked on this page. I’m still trying to decide what to do next. I’m thinking doodles. In the meantime, and in between my studies and art journaling, I was lead to focusing on a class.

CLASS & Journaling:

In December 2017, I purchased the Art Bundle for Good. I learned about the Art Bundle in early 2017 and made my first purchase. The Art Bundle for Good is a project created or organized by John Bardos which provides some amazing art resources at an unbelievable discount and portions go to a worthy charity. When I first learned about it, I wasn’t sure about it but gave it a try and now I’m so glad I did. Having purchased two of the Art Bundles I’m amazed and thrilled with all that is included. I have resources that will last me for years so even if I can’t purchase another art class, there are enough courses in the two Art Bundles to keep me busy for a long time.

From one of these resources I received an email stating that Dream Lab was shutting down. I had only glanced at this opportunity when I went through the process to acquire the courses provided from the Art Bundle in December. I quickly emailed the owner, Andrea Schroeder asking if I would lose access to the courses. She quickly replied, stating no, that she was just altering the free course she had available, basically upgrading it and changing its name.

What this email did was to make me look at the courses I received from Andrea in the Art Bundle to see how they fit in my current life. I admit, I have been struggling with attracting what I want to have in my life, so when I saw the email and reviewed the courses, I thought “why not”. It couldn’t hurt. The course I’m talking about is “Creative Dream Incubator”. Her approach is very simple and what I love most about her lesson is the simplicity of it. Her artwork may not look like what I would create but it shows me that it doesn’t have to be elaborate or a masterpiece. People with little to no art skills can use her methods and techniques in helping to bring about a particular dream they may be struggling with developing and want to have in their life. I do believe it is based on the law of attraction but she takes it down to a more simplistic level for those who are not accustomed to or understanding what all is involved in the law of attraction. She provides simple tools you can learn to apply in your everyday life. I am up to module three. There are six modules in total.

I will admit that even with the simple methods I’m still learning how to apply them every day. I need to find ways that work for me. What I find interesting is in the artwork in particular I have added some of the steps before I read the module where she suggests adding particular things. So for me the artwork for supporting my dream comes naturally while the rest of the supporting elements doesn’t. I believe this is due to my being taught to not ask questions when I was a child and due to my environment causing me to focus on the negative instead of the positive things in life. I am hoping these methods will help me to alter that aspect of myself.

I won’t be adding pictures of this lesson for two reasons. The first is I feel the need to keep it private but wanted to write about the class in case others might be struggling with similar issues and want to give it a try. The other reason is Andrea worked hard on these courses and the pictures would be giving away too much of her hard work. I am recording my progress in my journal, which is the journal I use almost daily and my version of a bullet journal. This class isn’t just helping me with learning how to create my dream but it is also helping me to learn ways in which I can use my journal to support those dreams.

OTHER:

For a while now, I’ve had a couple things on my mind. Stencils/Masks and stamps. I read an article in the March/April 2018 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors called “Printing Lab: Carved Monotypes” by Dawn Emerson. Even before reading the article I have been wanting to find a way to make my own stamps. I have already made a few of my own stencils and masks, which I want to continue to do.

I don’t know why but this is something I keep putting off. There was a discussion in one of the groups on Facebook about copyright issues when using commercial stamps and stencils in artwork people want to sell. Like others I feel it is crazy when a product you buy can’t be used in your own artwork that you want to sell, especially if the person selling the artwork isn’t just selling a print of the image but has added their own artwork as well. I won’t go into the legalities of this. It is too complicated and too volatile of a topic.

I have in the past purchased some stencils and stamps. I use them only for my personal artwork. Since I don’t currently sell any artwork, it isn’t an issue. From the very start of getting into mixed media I have always felt the need to have everything in my artwork be my unique artwork. This is just one of the many reasons I also don’t do collage very much using commercially created items. I won’t get into that either. With wanting my artwork to be my own unique artwork it means if I want to use stenciling/masking or stamping techniques and collage techniques then I need to create my own. There is one benefit to making my own. I can do it cost effectively.

Below are two of my new stencil designs. I drew them on regular printer paper using pencil, then went over the final design in ink and scanned them into my computer. Scanning them serves a few purposes. It saves them in case the original copy gets destroyed. I can increase or decrease their size or even use just a portion of the design. I could potentially sell the design too. If printed at original size on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper there is a small border around the edge which may not show up in this image.

I hope to use some of my images from Inktober 2017 to create stamps. You can see the images from Inktober 2017 here.  This takes me back to the article I read in Cloth Paper Scissors. In the article the artist created a monoprint from an image she carved into wood. This gave me the idea to try and use my wood burning tool to carve an image into a small piece of wood, seal it, and use it as a sort of stamp. I haven’t tried this yet but plan to in the near future. I also picked up some carving material used to make stamps so I can experiment to decide which method works best. It is possible one works best for certain applications while the other works best for other types of applications. I’m excited to give this a try and see what develops.

I often feel like I’m not doing much when it comes to my creativity. To alleviate me of this perception I started listing in my daily journal the things I have done that day. Sometimes, it is true, that I haven’t done any artwork but there is creativity in almost everything we do. Sometimes I have to get creative in accomplishing the mundane things in my life. Creating this list also helps me to see when other things have taken precedent and it is generally easy to see why.

I leave you on that note now. My studies call to me as well as those mundane things in life that need to be taken care of. Feel free to comment. Hearing from those who take the time to read my post is one of the more simpler joys in life.

❤ ❤ ❤

My Creative Beginning to 2018….

I ended 2017 with the intent of adding more color and art to my handwritten journal. I was doing ink drawings and adding some of my tangle drawings to the journal then writing about what I was creating which sometimes included comments about my life. This means my journal was generally black and white. I wanted color too.  So… in December I started using some cheap markers and trying to get creative on my pages.

I added calendars for the months since I started my job the end of July using various colored markers. Working is now a major part and joy of my life so I wanted it in my journal. On December 31st, I added an acrylic wash background using neon colors since they are very transparent. I wanted to see the lines on the right page to use as guidelines for my writing. I can’t write in a straight line unless I have lines to guide me. I ended the year with a celebration page for the good things that happened in 2017. I’m glad I did this because I tend to remember the bad things instead of the good things.

I still wish at times that I didn’t have to work but who wouldn’t when they love to do art?! To have nothing else to do but art would be such an adventure. I had that for a little over a year. Other than having to look for a job at the same time, my days were full of art and I loved every moment of it. It also helped with the anxiety of not finding a job.

I am surprised by how much I enjoy my job. I interact with people every day. Two days before Christmas I was asked to hand out chocolates to the customers. It was the best job EVER! I have always considered myself an introvert but doing this job and handing out the chocolates taught me that I can interact with strangers and not die in the process… lol.

I am also a Gemini. So to find this out about myself isn’t surprising. I have many times in my life seen two sides of myself which are in complete opposition of one another. There have been a couple people who have commented about this as well because of seeing me in different environments which reflect those oppositions. The best thing about this job is when I walk out the door at work, I leave it at the door. And when I walk in the door at work, I pick it back up. In my previous job of 33 years, the job went with me no matter where I was, which meant no breaks from it not even on vacations.

So yes, my daily life sometimes ends up in my handwritten journal which was originally intended to be just for writing about my artwork. That means it creeps into this blog as well which was also meant to be just about my art. No matter how hard you try, life does cross over into our art.

For 2018, I’m continuing in my journal from 2017, this is my first page which begins my chapter for 2018. I’m about 1/4 of the way into the journal. I created this today before I knew the group, I joined on Facebook has daily words for inspiration. The words for the first two days in 2018 are EXPRESS and VESSEL, so these words didn’t make it into my journal page.

I was exhausted after an 8 hour shift at work yesterday. I had no energy for doing anything creative on the 1st. This is also my first try at doing zendangles. I want to try and find balance this year in everything including in my art especially, between taking classes and doing my own art, so I’m trying things like this on my own.

I started the page by drawing in guidelines for my words using pencil, then added the words also in pencil. Then I added the background with an acrylic paint wash in neon colors. Once the paint dried, I went over the letters with cheap water based markers and the dangles are gel pens.

I had intended to erase the guidelines but forgot I wouldn’t be able to erase them after I put acrylic wash over them, so I improvised and went over the lines with gel pen then added the dangles. The hardest part was trying to figure out what patterns to use on the dangles. I have found I’m not very good at creating designs or patterns on my own. Hopefully, I’ll get better at it with practice.

In this journal, the left page is blank for artwork and the right page is lined for writing. I use a wash so I can still see the lines. I do artwork on the left and the right is for writing which I do over the acrylic wash with gel pen. I know I won’t be able to do this every day, however, I plan on doing something artistic whenever I want to write in my journal. If I have a lot to write about I generally do that on my computer and just do highlights in my handwritten journal.

As I mentioned, the first two words for this year are EXPRESS and VESSEL. Doing my journaling this way I hope to EXPRESS myself artistically more in 2018. Technically I consider my journals (both physical and digital) my VESSELS which contains many parts of me and my life. I want my physical journal to be more of a visual journal. Sometimes I include pictures of what I have created in my digital journal. This year I hope to add more pictures of my art into my digital journal so I have a record of what I have created.

I still plan on doing my ink drawings. My thoughts have been about wanting to incorporate my love of black ink with my love of color. This is something I’ll need to play around with this year. I also want to explore different ways of using ink in my drawings. So far I have just used a pen. I want to explore using a brush.

I enjoyed the dangling bits on this page even though it is obvious a beginner has done it. The challenge I had was in creating the different dangle patterns. I tried not to copy patterns I saw from other pictures but in the end I found myself doing just that. I need to find better balance and I didn’t have enough open space between the words, but that is okay. It was fun to do for the first time and is something I can play with while sitting down recovering from a long day at work.

On another note, I did another lesson from Life Book 2017, week 33, “Bloom into Spontaneous Collage” with Shelley Klammer. Her explanation of how she gathers collage materials for here spontaneous collage page helped me tremendously on creating this page. I am not a fan of collage but after doing this page, I realized, I do like collage just not so much in my artwork with paints. I sometimes have difficulty with my paints lifting.  This type of collage was fun to do. I may find myself doing something like this from time to time. I just don’t have much collage material.

Her method of doing these collage pages is more about intuitive collage. It isn’t about designing a page before you start or even picking a subject to collage about before selecting your collage pieces, which I think is why I liked it.

Doing it intuitively brings information from your subconscious to your conscious mind. Until I did this collage I was sure I didn’t have any dreams left. But this collage ended up being a dream board of sorts. Without thinking about it, I found myself selecting pictures that had some symbolic meaning to what I wanted for me and my daughter. It helped me to realize my dreams were not dead, they were just buried.

I find my dreams too hard to keep to the forefront of my thoughts. Since being laid off from my previous job of 33 years, I felt my dreams were impossible and it has become very difficult to think about them without sinking into depression. So learning those dreams are still alive was a relief while at the same time it hurts to realize they may never come true, at least not without some major changes in my life.

In Life Book, I work on single sheets of paper. At the end of Life Book, Tam shows how she binds her pages into a book. I have been considering this and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so a few months ago I looked up alternatives. I looked up alternatives because I didn’t want to permanently change my pages by adhering them to each other or to other paper in order to bind them into a book. I landed upon an idea I hope will work.

I want to create a book box for storing my artwork from Life Book. That way I can store the pages as loose pages and be able to take them out if I want to. This way too, I can use the back of my pages for a journal of sorts about the class for that particular piece. The issue I have is my pages are 9″ x 12″ and the chipboard I have is 12″ x 12″. I’m not sure I can create a book box that will hold the pages using the chipboard I have. If not, I may have to buy a different medium to create the book box. I’m thinking I could use hardboard which I can purchase at my local hardware store. I’ll just need to learn how to cut it down to the size I need. I have time to figure that all out since I’m only on week 34 of Life Book 2017.

It is my hope that this idea will work out well. If it does, then I will be able to use it for storing any other artwork I do on loose sheets of paper. There are other options but they all have their drawbacks. This one seems to be the one that will reassure me that my pages will stay intact without having to alter them in some way for storage.

I am glad 2017 is over. I want to move on and let go of the difficulty of the past couple of years. I am grateful for the time I had to bring art back into my life. The time I had without a job helped me to cement this need into my life and make it a priority so when I did get a job it wouldn’t be set aside again. These last two years have been a time of adjustment, of learning how to alter my priorities and choose what was important to me and how to make room for what is important.

Up until now I have never chosen a word to focus on for the year. I tried New Year’s resolutions several times to no avail. I’ve had years of no focus at all. For 2018, I decided to choose a word and see what happens. My choice is BALANCE and each month I plan on choosing another word to focus on for the month which supports my focus of BALANCE. For January, my word is BOUNDARIES. It is my hope, to focus on them, journal about them, research and then make choices I can incorporate into my life.

I’ve had issues with setting boundaries my whole life. In some of my art classes the topic of boundaries has come up so I decided it was time to learn about them and set some of my own. I know I have some boundaries but they have been arbitrary. It is time to put some reason behind them and make them a solid part of how I live my life.

This may seem strange to some people to think someone my age doesn’t have firm boundaries by now. It even sounds strange to me. It is something I have come to understand to be a source of issues I have run into in my life. Since deciding this, I have found myself dreaming about situations that reflect these issues I’ve had in my life. It is like my subconscious is showing me what I should have done in those situations instead of what I did do. It is showing me the boundaries I need to set. I find this rather interesting.

I sometimes think I should have been a psychologist or research scientist because of these remarkable things I notice about my mind and how it interacts with me and my universe. I notice it even more now. I’m not sure if that is a product of allowing my creativity to grow through art or if it is just this particular time in my life which finds this all very fascinating. Maybe a mixture of both. It is so very easy to discard these subtle truths as our imagination conjuring up something that could only be in a science fiction tale. I, however, prefer to believe in the impossible. Maybe that will carry over into other aspects of my life as well and I’ll find myself believing my dreams really can come true.

 

 

Watercolor cloud story telling…

I did an earlier painting using this process from a class I took. During the class, I did three pages with the watercolor technique that forms a sort of abstract cloud. My earlier painting was posted here.

Yesterday, and today, I took the two pages left from the class and completed the painting and the story which came out during the painting of each one. Here are the two paintings:

I have really enjoyed this process.

Another class involved blind contour. I was really resistant to doing this class. I was resistant because I thought it would be a waste of paper and I wouldn’t be able to do it very well. I was both right and wrong. The class involved doing a blind contour of a reference. I chose a bamboo plant, once the drawing is done, to then paint in the different sections in the line drawing.

This turned out better than I thought it would. I really liked how it looked but the next steps went like this. Journal over your painting. The suggestion was to journal about blind contouring but you can journal about anything. Then paint over it lightly, covering about 90% of the painting and journaling. Once dry, do another blind contour over the paint.

I really loved how my painting looked with the journaling over it. I was tempted to stop at that point. However, I was determined to do the whole class, so I continued. I painted over it and chose using a Neocolor II for the blind contouring, then I painted it and it came out like the first picture.

I absolutely hated it.

I decided to do it again, only this time stop at the end of the journaling. The second picture below is my second blind contour before the journaling. I love it even with the journaling I did later. It kind of makes me think of a short story written over a painting representing the story. I like the thought of that.

This last is from a class on creating a journal page. I used homemade texture paste which I don’t use near often enough. I love the feel of the texture and how the texture takes the paint. I’m not fond of collage, however, a collage of something I created with my own two hands felt good and I like the affect.

I finally got caught up in my classes. This is a relief. I felt pressured to get caught up though the pressure was coming only from me. I didn’t feel like I should work on other things until I got caught up. It was hard to balance my day and focus on other things knowing I was falling behind in my classes. Now that I’m caught up, I should be able to focus on some of my own ideas.

~Patti

Catching up….

I’ve been absent for a while and I apologize. I could say it has been a rather crazy time, however, that would mostly be in my head. I have been learning everything I can in regards to mixed media art and avoiding everything else in life that is possible to avoid.

Why?

I just don’t want to look at it right now. Too much of it is sad, worrisome, and in some cases scary. I won’t go into the details, just know, my art endeavors are keeping me sane.

In October I focused on Inktober. In November, I started Christy Sobolewski’s “30 Pages” class videos she has on YouTube. I completed them by Christmas. Here are a few pictures:

The page on the left is my favorite. It is page 4 of Christy’s class.  I love everything about this page and would love to do something like this on a larger page for framing.

This was fun, page 8, she used collage from a magazine. I chose to use copies of my own artwork for the collage. It shows some progress in my faces.

Page 18, on the left. She is actually a tip-in. So far the best face I’ve done.

Just so you can see, she actually is a tip-in, the left side is the view of the page behind her.

These are my Inktober drawings:

When I first started Inktober I had no idea what to draw each day. The first day’s drawing didn’t come out anywhere near what I had hoped. The second day was a bit better but still left me wondering what I would do next. The third day I decided to draw a mandala and before I completed it I knew my theme from then on would be mandalas. I thoroughly love drawing mandalas. In fact, as I work on different class projects, while I’m waiting for things to dry or have some extra time, I work on another mandala. I’m building up quite a stash of them. Most of them are in black and white, a very few I have colored, and even less I’ve used colored card stock or art paper, instead of the white or cream.

I was also working on Willowing.org’s class “Art, Heart, and Healing” by Tam.  Her approach to art is more on the whimsical side. While Christy’s isn’t quite whimsical, her style also isn’t realistic, at least in her art journaling. Both gave me plenty to experiment with.

When I was younger, much younger, as a child and a teen, I received no artistic encouragement, even though there was plenty of talent in my family. It wasn’t until 8th grade, I learned I could actually draw something realistically. That first drawing was of a baby horse, a colt. My art teacher who was my only art teacher from 8th grade until I graduated high school, saw my talent and subtly encouraged me, keeping a few of my best pieces. I was thrilled when he asked to keep them and I gladly agreed. I have no idea to this day how he used them or what he did with them. It still gives me a good feeling to know he wanted them and encouraged me to pursue art as a career.

I didn’t follow his advice. Outside of school, I was too afraid to pick up a pencil and give my skill a test run. Every time I tried, the pencil would be put back down before even a small portion of the drawing developed and not picked up again for months if not years. My inner critic was too loud and hell bent on being a perfectionist. I was also determined to create realistic drawings and frustrated when nothing came out even close or at least perfect enough for my critical eye.

I’m a great deal older now, maybe not wiser, but definitely having experienced enough in life to know there are more important things in life than to be hung up on something not being perfect. Especially, when it means not enjoying something I love to do.

I wanted freedom, emotional freedom, to express myself in my art. I am getting there, but how I got here was a hard and difficult journey. I want to be able to do what I love, so here I am. Doing just that. Imperfections and all.

I started writing this post several weeks ago, set it aside for a while and just today have come back to it to see if I could complete it and post it. I had to update it a bit because I’ve finished much of what I said I was working on and have started new projects.

I started Life Book 2017. I thought I would have problems getting the work done each week, interestingly, instead, I find myself with time to spare and waiting for the next lesson. One of the bonus classes is something I can continually add to. I can use this to help fill in while I’m waiting.

I’ve been working on 21 Secret’s Techniques and Tools class, taking my time as I work through it, so I work one in now and then during my wait.

I also found Documented Life Project online, but with things as they are, I chose not to spend money on the current offering and found 2015’s is free, so I’m following 2015’s prompts for 2017 and aligning the weeks as best I can. I’m still working out whether I’ll do it like a planner or just an Art Journal. It may end up a mixture of both.

As if those three weren’t enough I’ve been looking for other projects to do. I came  across Jennebellie’s Monthly Challenge Group, so I may work those in once in a while. They are an option when I’m feeling the need to fill in gaps of time. She has a list of the challenges all the way back to 2014.

The past few days I’ve been in research mode. I don’t like working in fixed bound books. Also, I’m not crazy about the coil or wired type bound journals or art books because of the holes in the pages even though I can take them apart and work on the pages separately. I love working on loose leaf paper which gives me the flexibility to choose different size as well as different paper type, however, it leaves me with the dilemma of how to store them. If I bind them afterwards into a book, that means either holes in my pages or fixing them to a backing of sorts that can then be bound. I don’t like the idea of either of those.

I started looking into portfolio options. I’m thinking about creating portfolios which would contain my pages for each of my projects. There are different options. I could use cardboard to create the portfolio which would be similar to the elastic bound folders you find in office supplies but it would unfold completely to lay flat when I want to flip through my pages. Another option would be to make a box. The book boxes could be an option where I make different sizes for the different size paper I use but that would mean my pages might not be sorted by project. My logical mind rebels at that idea. I’m still sorting this all out.

I still have work on this site I need to do. I won’t go into what right now, just know I have more plans for it than just a place to blog.  I need to get off my duff and do it.

One thing is for sure, I’ll never be short on something to do.

~Patti