Life Goes On…

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately, in particular Jess Karp. She is an amazing artist but also an amazing person. If I had this life to do all over again, I would hope to be like her. She is an example of what a person can do if they have loving support to pursue the things they love and the resources to do it. If you watch her videos you will eventually learn her background and that she started at a young age and had access to art schools. Sometimes the places you live also have an impact on how you develop.

With the digital world today that might not be such an issue as it was for those of us that didn’t have access to the schools or exceptional teachers. I would never have known of my artistic abilities if it hadn’t been for my art teacher I had starting in 8th grade. Even so, with such a late start and the negative experiences I had growing up, I had no faith in my abilities even when I saw them make themselves known on the paper or materials in my hands.

These past couple of weeks, I have begun to see the skills I am learning. In a desire to honor our loving cat, Mimzy, I decided to make her a major portion of two paintings in my art journals. The first is the one with me and my daughter and our dog. She was declining rather quickly at this point having been diagnosed with kidney disease and having entered stage 4 most recently. Having our pets larger than life in the painting signifies their importance in our lives.

The second painting is the one with her sitting upon a book with her favorite objects. Her depiction in this painting looks so much like her, I am so glad I was able to bring her to life in this painting. We had to make a difficult decision and on April 12th, she crossed over after having struggled for several days, no longer eating and only drinking. Her last day she spent some time in the sunshine outside with us keeping her company. Then we took her to our Vet and said our good-byes. She is greatly missed.

The last image is the final result of one I shared earlier which I had been in the process of working on.

The first image is a self portrait of a spread from a class Effy Wild gave in her Book of Days Fall 2023 lessons, about recognizing those things we are proud of. The spread is meant for journaling these thoughts as if speaking them aloud. It isn’t about being arrogant or bragging but about self-recognition. Many of us do not acknowledge the things we do when we should so we can see we are much better than the person we think we are.

The middle image is expressing our dreams. There was a time when I gave up all hope and I had no more dreams that I could imagine to shoot for or strive for. That was in a very difficult part of my life where I could see no way out. I trudged along day after day. I couldn’t give up because I had my daughter to take care of. It took a few years but slowly things started to change, until I finally could see a tiny light at the end of that long dark tunnel.

I still have moments where I wonder if it is worth having any dreams at all because often the dreams I have never come about, something else always happens and is rarely anything close to any dreams I have. It is still this way, even though my life is gaining a bit of sunshine.

So, this spread about dreams was difficult to consider or even find any dreams that I would consider possible. I did finally come up with four, only time will tell if they are possible. They are more like wishes than dreams.

I have one class left in Effy’s Book of Days Fall 2023 course. This one is also one that isn’t all that easy. It is about recognizing the person I am who does the hard things in life and who I think she is. I have faced some very difficult things in my life, ones I would rather not think about at times but I should acknowledge that I survived. I got through them. I would like to think I am stronger for them but in one particular situation, I discovered my limits and how weak I can be. The hard part is knowing that part of me still exists and it could happen again in other situations. What do I do if it does? That is the scary part because I really don’t know.

These past couple of weeks have been hard on me and my daughter. The loss of our beloved cat, Mimzy has been difficult. We both show it in different ways while the underlying lack of motivation, feeling the need to sleep at odd hours of the day, and feeling her loss unexpectedly at times hits us like a ton of bricks.

I am slowly getting back on track, making lists to keep track so I don’t get lost in all the things I want to do and have something drop without realizing it. Watching Jess Karp has been inspiring, helpful and just a joy to watch. I just hope a small piece of what I watch her do, rubs off on me. If you haven’t seen her, look her up.

An Amazing Find

I had about an hour to kill so I decided to visit the local thrift shop. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just curious what they might have. It had been a while since I had frequented the shop so there were a lot of changes since I had been there last. They had opened a second floor for the furniture and they had moved the book section. It looked like they did this to make more room for clothing.

I like to purchase old books for using in collage but I still had several at home so I didn’t really need any old books. Since I love books, I decided to browse what they had anyway. I thought maybe I could find some sheet music or possibly music books as I am also learning to play the piano. I didn’t find the latter but I did find something interesting.

While browsing I saw a rather large book, an atlas. At first I just passed it by but then I found myself returning to it. I pulled it off the shelf and found it was in amazing condition. Not only that but the pages are amazingly thick. This book measures 12.5″ x 19″ and comes in its own hard sleeve cover. It is dated 1970. I purchased it for only CA$2.50.

This book is amazing as the maps are so detailed. One map is of the US depicting the Civil War and the locations of battles showing where the Union and Confederate armies were. The map is covered in tiny print, red for confederacy and blue for union. That is only one example of the amazing things the maps reveal.

The day prior to finding this, I had viewed a video on YouTube showing how to make pocket notebooks by Four Keys Book Arts. The bookmaker used pages from an old atlas for the covers. Do you see where I am going with this? When I saw the atlas I couldn’t pass it up. I do enjoy making handmade journals, and I am looking forward to seeing how I can use this atlas in my journals.

In regards to drawing, I decided to go back to the basics and practice shading. I watched another YouTube video titled “My Favorite Shading Exercises for Beginners” by Erika Lancaster. I followed her instructions on the 6 exercises and here they are:

I need to learn how to not get graphite smeared all over my pages. lol I use fixative the page is done but until that happens it is so easy for me to get graphite everywhere.

I am not sure if it is the pencils or the paper but in drawing these pages my pencils have felt scratchy. I am probably spoiled by Prismacolor pencils but we’ll see as I try out different graphite pencils to see if they all have the same feel. The scratchiness makes me think the graphite isn’t laying down smoothly.

I have several other things in progress. One of them another journal spread. This one is completely my own though it was inspired by Effy’s Book of Days Fall 2023 Week 10 Now You Can Let Go lesson. I am not sure if I am done yet but I like how it is turning out. The pillars are meant to provide areas to journal about the week.

In other areas, I am slowly adding items to my Ko-fi store. I enjoy making digital decorative papers that can be used in a variety of ways. This is an example of one. It could be printed on a variety of papers, including sticker paper. In some cases, I have printed up sheets like this on sticker paper and cut them into strips to use like washi tape. Clear sticker paper would make it somewhat transparent, matte sticker paper would make it very similar to washi tape. Tissue paper or very thin paper would make it excellent collage paper for mixed media. Cardstock could make it excellent for scrapbooking. Visit my shop if you would like to see more designs. More will be added every couple of days.

Book of Days, Life Book 2024 and other art…

Book of Days is about art journaling about your life. It can be in the form of daily, weekly, monthly or any period of time you want. I have been doing daily in a weekly spread. I like this approach because it forces me into thinking about my day. It also makes me want to record the most significant part of my day.

I tend to think on the negative side of things. It isn’t that bad because it does prepare me for things that can happen and do happen that are not always positive. However, knowing I will most likely be posting and writing about my journal spreads makes me want to lean more towards the positive aspects of my life. This is good.

This is very good, because it wasn’t too long ago when I discovered I am most likely what they call “negativity bias”. Doing things that make me look at the more positive things in my life is a good thing and hopefully this will help me in the future to remember the positive things more so than the negative things.

This week’s spread is inspired by Effy Wild’s BOD Fall 2023 “From the Vault #3” lesson in which she was dealing with anxiety and the things she will do that can help her during those anxious times. Getting into the “Zen” zone can be very helpful and she uses doodling to help her enter a Zen state.

I am not a natural doodler. I never doodled as a child. I am not sure why. I sometimes wonder if I had a negative experience relating to doodling. I used to watch a woman I worked with during our meetings sit and doodle as she listened to what was being said. She would make some very pretty doodles and I often wished I could do something similar but for me to doodle, I have to breech some walls and my inner negativity critic. I could often hear that doodling serves no purpose. It doesn’t create a beautiful piece of realistic artwork, nothing useful, or anything someone would purchase or hang on a wall. My inner critic thinks nothing is good unless is looks realistic. But then my inner critic wasn’t a connoisseur of some of the master artists like Salvador Dali.

The below two images are two points in my journey with this week’s art journal spread. I have taken up the doodling challenge to see what I can create, but my logical mind wanted an area to write a few words about my day and didn’t want to have to contend with doodles getting in the way and not leaving any room for the words. I devised a plan to create a trail of the days of the week, and next to each day of the week, either above or below the word, I will write a few words about the day, then doodle around it.

The second image shows my progress so far up to Wednesday (today). I did the majority of the doodles seen on the page, today after I selected the phrase representing today. Thursday will be a busy day for me so I may not doodle until Saturday or Sunday.

I enjoyed this today more than I thought I would. I like the path created by the days of the week. My logical mind finds joy in this as it shows a logical progression of my week. The background was done using a homemade stencil. I am not great at stenciling. I invariably end up with too much paint on my sponge causing it to leak under the areas that aren’t supposed to have paint. I plan on getting a stencil brush soon but for this spread, the messiness works well with it.

I have the worst luck when it comes to white Posca Acrylic Paint Pens. I don’t know what it is with me and white pens but they often stop working on me before the paint runs out. It is very frustrating. Getting the white doodles down that I did today was a feat in itself. I may resort to keeping the pens that no longer work and just using them to dip into white acrylic paint like a dip pen and draw or write with them. It is bad enough I have to fight my inner critic and even worse to have to fight with my art supplies.

I tried three times to create the Life Book 2024 “Whispers of Gratitude” lesson painting to get a similar feel of simple elegance of botanicals. This is my third attempt and the closest I was able to get. I needed to move on to the other lessons but this helped me to understand what I need to do to create the effect I want. After creating this, I came across a YouTube video that showed something similar in which they explained to use colors in the same color family, for instance, greens and blues as I did here but they did not vary size or the leaf shape very much, just slight changes in the colors. I may try this again in the future but for now I need to move on to the other lessons.

The next lesson in Life Book 2024 is about self-affirmation, self-love. Tamara Laporte demonstrated how to make some affirmation cards. On days where I feel off, things like this can be a reminder to be gentle and kind to one’s self and pulling a card with something positive and self-affirming can help switch one’s focus. Tam made only nine cards. In my usual fashion, I decided to make more.

The below image was taken after I completed one card. See that stack on the left of the six cards? Yes, that is my goal to fill every one of them with self-affirmation, so I can use them like a Tarot deck or Spirit deck, as one would use them to remind themselves to open up and look at what is around us.

I didn’t follow Tam’s process exactly. Because I wanted to make plenty of cards, I decorated the pages in a similar fashion up until I was ready to start adding a focal image or the words. At that point is when I cut the pages into 3×4″ cards. After I add the image and the words, I round the corners, and ink the edges. I may put a glossy or matte finish on the cards once they are all done.

I am not sure if I will do glossy. Glossy can tend to be tacky and cause the cards to stick together. I have had journal pages stick together and a few years ago I made a regular playing card deck with a glossy finish. After a while of being stacked together some will stick together. No damage when I pull them apart but the risk is there. I had even waxed them but it could just be the brand of glossy medium I used. I’ll make that decision after I finish all 63 cards.

The affirmation cards will take a while to complete. I expect I will be needing to print many of the images I will want to use. I had to purchase a new printer. My old Brother printer was starting to wear out. I had some lines that weren’t printing at all, and it was leaving black streaks across my papers depending on what paper I used and what I printed. I went through almost a whole set of ink cartridges sending the printer through its cleaning process and printing the test pages. I finally gave it up.

I have always wanted a wide format printer and scanner and I found an Epson model that was on sale. On top of the Staples took my old printer and took another $50 off the new printer. It took no time to setup and my first test print was awesome. It definitely is an improvement on print quality. I can’t wait to test out the wide format just haven’t had time or a reason to do so. I expect my card deck will give me that reason.

In even more art news, I signed up for a free class “Wish Upon a Star”. The below image is the warmup bonus lesson of creating a Magical Eye. I am thrilled with how this came out. It isn’t as mystical looking as the instructor’s but then this is more me than the mystical version.

After I finished this I came across another YouTube video that demonstrated how to draw a realistic eye. When I have the time, I plan on giving this a try. My dream is to be able to draw realistically and this eye gives me hope in being able to do that. I have had much trouble in the past drawing eyelashes. I am getting closer to it and the video on drawing a realistic eye breaks it down even better.

If you think this is a lot going on in a week, along with me working full time. You are right. But…. it isn’t all that I have been doing. I pulled out a sketchbook. This sketchbook at first was to return to my anatomy class and continue my 100 days of drawing bones which was pushed to the side recently but instead of putting myself into a box of having to draw one particular subject, I am leaving it open. I started over at #1 and each drawing will be numbered as I go. I am not pressuring myself into drawing every day because I have a lot of drawing activity already with my art journal and lessons. And somewhere in my day, I do need to work at my day job. lol

On top of that, I am continuing to fill in any gaps with creating digital designs to put up in Redbubble or Ko-fi.com. I have some designs I created some time ago and it is my goal to tweak them and make them available on Ko-fi.com. The great thing about digital designs, you can use them as often as you like. They will never run out as long as you have a printer, paper and ink.

If you are interested in seeing what I have in my shops, check these out:

Purple Tulip Art Studio Redbubble shop

Purple Tulip Art Studio Ko-fi shop

Thank you for spending your time with me. If you enjoyed what you read, please “like” and if so inclined leave a comment.

Art Journal Spread for 18March through 24 March (update)

I started writing this a few days ago and became sidetracked as life has a way of doing this. So forgive me please the lateness of this post.

Today (24March2024) marks the last day of this journal spread. If you missed my first post on creating this spread, you will find it here. This past week has been a flurry of activity in many areas, so for this spread I picked just four days to write about using some succinct wording. This is about midpoint before I started filling in the blocked off sections.

I learned a lot from working on this spread.

The colors are scrumptious. They make me very happy. It is like surrounding my brain with a warm blanket whenever I look at this.

Each day I chose a tangle pattern to use in the blocked areas and I chose words or a phrase to represent that day.

Monday was a day of sunshine, it was the last of several we had in a row so I couldn’t let that go unnoticed since I love the feel of sunshine on my body.

Tuesday was an off day for me and I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around anything so I let it go. It wasn’t that it didn’t exist. It just didn’t have anything I wanted to make note of.

Wednesday was a continuation of Tuesday, where it felt like everything I did went wrong but in the end, it all ended up right. I have a feeling people will understand what I mean, even without the details.

Thursday was a day of rain, as had been Wednesday but Wednesday’s rain wasn’t that noticeable with all that went on.

Friday I ended up watching a three hour video of “Unbelievable Celebrity Impressions On Got Talent” on YouTube. It had me laughing out loud several times and it was even funnier when many of them did impressions of Simon and sometimes taking risks in doing so. It showed Simon’s good nature even though he can be tough on those who go in unprepared. Three hours seemed to be a lot and I didn’t think I would watch it all but in the end I’m glad I did as the laughter felt wonderful.

After adding all the details of tangles, and the words, I wasn’t completely happy with the spread. I considered leaving it as it was but the light blue borders bothered me.

I didn’t settle for the light blue borders on the right page. It just didn’t fit and stood out like a sore thumb so I worked on changing that. It took a few tries. I started with Phthalo Blue but it didn’t fit in either. I tried layering on gold but that didn’t work. Since these pages had purple, I mixed magenta and phthalo blue and ended up with the color I wanted.

As I layered on the purple, then added a layer of gold. The layer of gold ended up lifting the purple in a couple of places, because of it not being completely dry, to reveal blue. This was okay because this brought a bit of variation into the borders so it blended better with the rest of the spread, so I purposefully went back and removed a bit in other sections. Sometimes my impatience in letting things dries benefits me, other times not so much. Thankfully, this time it did.

Adding the dark purple caused the blocked areas to recede so I tried first outlining one in gold pen but that didn’t help. Then I tried outlining one in black pen but that didn’t do any better. I finally picked up the white which did the trick. Then I wrote the days of the week each area represented.

Below is the completed spread.

When creating the tangle patterns I was using Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen. I have a soft tip and a hard tip. I ran into a few problems where the ink seemed to fade on the page in some areas while in other areas it didn’t. It also seemed to rub off easily, sometimes even the next day. I did my best to not touch it or apply any wet medium over it and started using a piece of paper or paper towel between my hand and the page. I am learning this is a good practice no matter what medium you are using to protect other areas of my work.

Yesterday when adding the dark purple around the borders on the right page, I couldn’t help but paint over the days of the week I had written above each section. I noticed the ink didn’t move at all. Didn’t even budge. It was late Friday night when I had completed the last section and late Saturday evening when I added the purple around the borders. My only conclusion is that the Tombow Fudenosuke has a cure time even though it states it is a water-based pigment ink. This is confusing because I would think water-based would make me think it would move whenever something wet touched it but that didn’t happen. Maybe it becomes permanent once it is completely dry/cured. I do not use heat on any of my artwork to make it dry faster so I know heat did not set it.

I did a bit of research and found on Tombow’s website under FAQs a comment under the Mono Drawing Pens:

Are MONO Drawing Pens water soluble?

No, the MONO Drawing Pens are not water soluble. They have water-based pigment ink that is permanent and water resistant.

According to this water-based pigment ink is permanent and water resistant, so very confusing in my mind. lol But this is good news. It means I can continue to use the Fudenosuke Brush Pens in my artwork, but I do know I need to be careful and let them dry completely.

In researching this I came across the MONO Drawing Pens by Tombow and now I want to try them. My biggest problem with these types of pens, like Sukura Pigma Micron pens is I end up destroying the nibs. I can be rather heavy handed when writing. I am hoping this is changing due to my use of brush markers and learning to draw and write very thin lines. If I am not light handed with the brush markers then thin lines are impossible.

Back to my art journal. What is happening in this journal is amazing. The collection I am creating is beautiful and shows a history of my life these past few months as I have progressed in my art. Over the past few spreads, I am learning to be better at my color choices so my pages are cohesive and complementary.

My journey continues… see you next time…and thanks for reading.

Lesson from Life Book 2024

This is a lesson about gratitude and finding ways to create a piece of art based off of what you are grateful for. Tamara Laporte is a great instructor and is kind and caring to everyone. I will display my work as I progress on this piece but for the instructions consider looking into Life Book 2024 at Willowing.org.

This work is being done in watercolor which at times has been a struggle for me to face my inner critic. Watercolor is known to be an art medium that can be quite difficult to master. What I am learning is to be patient, kind and methodical in my approach.

Sometimes the make of watercolor can be the culprit that causes frustration. Using cheap children’s watercolors can be more frustrating than a higher priced tool for learning. I purchased a set of student grade watercolors and though the colors are not as vibrant, it does allow me to learn how watercolor will react on various substrates. For instance, when using paper that Stalogy contains in its journals is far different than printer paper, sketch paper, mixed media paper or watercolor paper. Even watercolor paper has various paper types, like 100% cotton versus the cold pressed watercolor paper in a Strathmore Visual Journal, so don’t expect watercolor to respond the same way on various types of paper. It will also respond differently on dry paper versus paper that has been made wet in preparation of the wet-on-wet watercolor technique.

All of these things can create a lot of frustration for someone who is learning to paint with watercolor. Following an instructor can make the process a bit easier but can leave you frustrated when you try to branch out on your own.

The best way for me to learn is to continue following classes while also practicing on my own. Practicing and taking notes about what I learn can help cement the information into my memory so the next time I paint with watercolors some of it might stick.

When trying to paint with the cheap watercolors, what also happens is the poor pigment quality can prevent some things that the watercolors with a better quality of pigment do. For instance, leaving a layer of watercolor dry before adding another color can create a layer of depth. But when using cheap watercolors this can be a problem. The poor pigment might not stain the paper as well, and may reactivate leaving none of the color left without mixing with the new layer. This might happen no matter how long the first layer has been drying. A better quality watercolor will stain the paper while drying, meaning the pigment seeps into the paper. Some of it might move when adding another wet layer but a portion of it should remain deep in the paper providing a layering effect.

This is my practice page. Looking at the top where the reddish leaf overlaps the small orange leaves, the orange leaves below it practically disintegrated when I put down the red leaf. Most likely due to me not waiting long enough between the layers. Looking at the purple leaves you can see how they layered better. I waited longer before adding the purple layer.

I learned a lot from doing this practice page. I hesitate on doing such practices on good watercolor paper because I don’t want to waste good paper. On this one I am glad I did because if I want to learn and become good, I need to practice. I can continue to practice on this page from what I learned and see what else I might learn to add to my notes.

What you use for your practice depends upon what you want to learn. In this case, I wanted to learn how to layer watercolor effectively. If all I wanted to do was learn how to paint the shapes of the leaves and petals, I could have done that on cheap paper, like printer paper.

Using watercolor paper, even good watercolor paper paper and paint isn’t a waste if you want to learn how the paint will react on different paper or with other colors or brands of watercolor. This will ultimately lead you to improving your skills as a watercolorist.

I will be adding a gallery of images below with the progression of my layering. This is about using layering to build depth and to use contrast to create a focal point or to guide the eye across the canvas.

In the first image, there is a very light background layer, with two layers of leaves or petals. The second has a third layer of petals, and the third has a fourth layer of petals. The rest of the images will progress with layers increasing in pigment until the last layer.

I am hoping I am not layering too much or too many colors because it is already beginning to look very busy. Hopefully, the darker pigments on the next few layers will help resolve this.

I think the red violet layer I put down was too dark, too soon, hopefully this will merge in as I add darker layers.

The darker green leaves are helping so I’ll see how the next layers go. I think it is better to continue to see if I am able to pull it together, than to stop. Sometimes stopping can mean missing out on seeing it come together.

I need to remind myself that the paints I am using are student grade and are not as vibrant. This may work better with a higher quality watercolor. Or just leaving out the red violet. My color range might be too wide. Adding the green might be throwing it off.

What am I learning?

1. I liked the green in my practice page.
2. I like the sparseness of the practice page.
3. Less is more in this case. (Don’t over populate the first layers.)
4. Maybe make a sketch to get an idea of the top most layer, with a few underlying layers.

The below group of images take you the rest of the way to the final piece.

1. Added darker green leaves.
2. Added darker purple leaves to create a focal point.
3. Added splatters and some texture to some of the leaves.
4. Started adding some black outline to the purple leaves.
5. Continued with the black outline and added some purple outline to the lighter of the purple leaves and rotated image.
6. Removed the tape I had bordering the edges of the paper and flipped it back around.

I kind of like the image flipped like it appears in the fifth image. I like the outlines on the darkest purple leaves. I think it helps define them more. I do think this is too cluttered but for my first attempt, it isn’t bad. I will most likely recreate this at another time as I did enjoy the process.

I lied. I wasn’t done. I added a few more outlines and some texture in a few more petals. I am liking this though I know it could be better, maybe a bit less busy but I think the darker focal point and the addition of outlines and textures has helped.

I don’t understand the difference in the background where it was darker in the earlier images when my lighting was the same. The change occurred when I did the splatters which now make the background lighter and the very soft wash in the background is now appearing in the images however very lightly. I think the splatters helped somehow with showing the true color of the paper.

Art Journal Spread for 18March through 24 March

This is my first post writing about a project I am working on. The idea is not mine. This comes from Effy Wild’s “Book of Days Fall 2023 Week 9 – The Little Things”. I have been following Effy for many years, took some classes several years ago before life caused a detour. This isn’t my first in this group of classes. But it is my first since deciding to return to this blog and write about my art.

What I took from Effy’s class was to do an abstract spread, breaking the right page into quadrants and the left page to be the main focal page. The words “An Ode To The Little Things” is all Effy’s and the idea to write them in block letters as you will see later.

I will take you through my process but it won’t be step-by-step from the class. I detoured from the class a bit and I would not infringe on Effy’s lesson. She is a wonderful artist and teacher so if you want to learn more about her process, please look her up. She uses art as a tool for healing which I am only beginning to get a slight understanding of how it works.

The book I am using is not an art journal. It is a regular writing journal with lined paper meant for writing in like a diary. It is not meant for liquid media except maybe ballpoint pen. To give the page some additional strength to handle the mediums I will throw at it, I glue two pages together. Sometimes, I prepare them by using white gesso. In this case, I did use white gesso spreading it with a palette knife leaving some texture on the page.

I used washi tape on the right page, around the edge and to cross over in the middle, to create four quadrants of equal size.

Once it was dry, I journaled with water soluble markers on the left page. It is not meant to be seen and I used white gesso over it, activating the marker so it mixed in with the gesso. It created a light blue tint to both pages as I treated both pages to keep them cohesive. I let this dry. As it was drying I realized I forgot to place washi tape across the center of the page vertically. I added it at this point but knew this would leave the center vertical stripes above and below the horizontal stripe a light blue. I would figure out how to fix this later.

This is where my process completely veered off from Effy’s. I am not comfortable with abstract art. I have done a few pieces but until I learn how to mix paint properly and choose colors that work well together, this will be an uncomfortable zone for me. The biggest challenge for me is getting the colors right.

I chose 5 of my favorite colors (Purple, Turquoise, Deep blue, Magenta, and Bright Yellow). I have been learning a bit about color theory and I knew enough to know that using yellow could destroy the whole background if not done right. I start with three of the my chosen colors (Purple, Turquoise and Deep blue). I knew they would combine well together when there was any overlap. I put the paint down in patches on both pages and before it was totally dry, I dripped water and spritzed water over the paint, then used a paper towel to blot the water up. This created patches of lighter color as you can see in the below image.

In the next image you can see the blue stripe from my mistake earlier.

After the first colors dried, I then added the second set of colors (Magenta and Bright Yellow). I needed to do this so the yellow would not cause a mud when going over the purple so I was careful in its placement. I then spritzed the pages again and blotted again. Once that layer was dry, I added gold and silver paint in patches on both pages. This is what is causing the glare. It is next to impossible to get metallic paint to show properly in pictures. Especially for an amateur like me.

I made sure all layers were dry and added the block lettering to the left page. I outlined it first in black, added a purple metallic marker for the thicker border around the letters then added a white outline. I liked how this set off the letters making it easy to read. I removed the washi tape and knew I needed to fix my mistake.

To fix it I added washi tape again but on the edges of the quadrants where they were painted. Then I painted the white borders to match the light blue. You will see this in a later picture.

Here are close up images of the four quadrants. I love how different they are and the paint textures that are showing up.

For my version of abstract, I decided to add tangle patterns. I have not done tangle patterns in years and have been feeling a need to include them in my journal. I started first by adding gold dots in the purple border around the letters. The last image shows the correction to my earlier mistake. I am also adding a bit more color using paint pens, so far to create dots in various places hoping to set off the tangle patterns.

I find the tangle patterns I want to use on TanglePatterns.com.

I am still in the process of adding more tangles. They will be added as the week progresses throughout the week. I will return and add more images once the spread is completed, probably around Friday.

I absolutely loved how the background turned out. I meant to take a picture of the left page before I put down the lettering but I forgot. The four quadrants will suffice if I ever want to use them for collage. I have added them to my Ko-fi page in case anyone wants a copy of the the high res images, they can be found here.

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 making progress and learning something new every day…

Every day, I’m learning something new on this journey with my digital planner. I find new and exciting ways to work with it. There are a number of things I’m finding out, like certain applications can make the PDF file cumbersome. I worried about someone being able to alter or delete what I had written since my writing was mostly done as annotations. This is basically a journey about discovering the limitations of certain applications and the never ending abilities of another application.

For instance, some limitations I ran across:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader (free version), allows for annotations but doesn’t allow for entering text upon the page.
• Adobe Photoshop Elements, allows for importing text from a single page of a PDF but is very difficult in designing graphic elements I want to add.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader (free version) and Adobe Photoshop Elements doesn’t allow for adding links, internal or external.
• Adding text in Xodo to a PDF is purely annotation, which means the text is editable in PDF viewers that support annotation.

I needed the following:

• my writing/journaling to become permanent within the PDF document, so it can’t be altered later in PDF viewers
• Elements and graphics need to be permanent within the PDF document especially when in viewers
• Be able to annotate/highlight/strike-through, etc to my writing/journaling and imported text from other sources and have it recorded/searchable in the PDF document

This still takes 3 applications but the way it is done is now completely altered and will make my final journal/planner more functional and permanent as an archival artifact.

I was up late last night playing around with this change in my process and this morning I successfully used it for my morning Bible study. By the way, it was one of Boho Berry’s digital journal videos which gave me the idea for the change in my process. Here is my page from my Bible reading this morning, using the free planner mentioned in my previous post:

The bible text comes from a free downloadable NLT bible in PDF format. The planner is one of the free digital planners I’m using. If you bother to take the time to read my notes and reflections forgive me for the personal content. I am a bit nervous in sharing it since it is so personal but I wanted to show how versatile a digital planner can be (without blurring stuff out) for so many things.

I wanted to have the chapter in the bible next to my notes and reflections. With the change in my process I am now able to highlight not JUST the scripture but I can also highlight my notes and color code them to match so I can easily find the verse which supports the notes I made. This is very much like what I’m doing in my journaling bible by hand but now it is all digital, AND in a PDF document which can be searched so I can find any references I might be looking for. I can read it in a PDF viewer, like any PDF document and search ALL content.

Below is a couple pages from another free digital planner I will be using in 2019. I found this planner “Sirena” through the Friday Freebies in Boho Berry Digital Planners Facebook group and is by Chanel Fana. The original page looks like this:

I altered it to look like this:

I learned I don’t like To Do lists when I started working with a bullet journal. Whether I did them daily, weekly or monthly, they were too repetitive and made me feel like I was a failure because I didn’t complete everything on my list and often pushed things out several weeks or even months. Therefore, I changed my list to “What I Did Today” which makes me feel a whole lot more accomplished and productive.

In order to track the things that are time sensitive, I will most likely create a page with those time sensitive items listed so I don’t forget something important that needs done. I’m good at keeping these things in my head but occasionally I need reminders.

The year at a glance original page looks like this:

I altered it to look like this:

One of the reasons I altered it was because I didn’t have the fonts used by the creator so when I imported the PDF into my application, the font defaulted to the Arial font which also altered the way the dates lined up and appeared. The other reason I altered it was because the weeks in this planner started on Monday and my week starts on Sunday. This planner also has monthly calendars I will also need to change and I’ll probably adjust the daily pages as well just because my dailies are really just journaling about my day.

It might be obvious to some but not all, why I am not just creating my own planner or using the planner as it is. When I started, all I wanted to know was whether it was worth my while to use one but I needed it to function for my needs. I was fairly sure I wouldn’t like it and wouldn’t stick with it, so finding one already created was a simple way to find out without having to go through creating all the graphics needed to make it LOOK and FUNCTION like a digital planner, especially since I’m working from a desktop computer and not from a tablet or iPad. iPad seems to have an abundant of choices to use for digital planners, while the desktop (Windows) is fairly sparse, unless you want to spend a crap load of money. I had to find out how feasible it was.

Finding the free digital planners was a God send. In the first day or two I was able to play with them in their original format just to see if they were functional on my system with apps I had or could afford.  Since it was functional, the rest was about whether I could alter it for my needs. There will never be a planner exactly the way I want it to be, digital or paper, so altering it is a necessity.

Since I’m not selling the planner and only altering it for my personal use and the planner is free, I felt I could share one or two pages here so you could get an idea of what I’m writing about. If you are interested in this planner or the other one above, I recommend joining Boho Berry Digital Planners group. You can find them in the resources provided in the Friday Freebies.

I am SO VERY GRATEFUL for the digital planners which people have created and share freely. Doing so enabled me to explore digital planners without spending any money since I wasn’t sure if this would be something I would stick with. I also wasn’t sure if I could find software within my price range which would allow me to do the alterations I needed for my purposes. The digital planners I have come across are reasonably priced so I might find myself buying one at some point in the future, if I don’t want to create my own. Even so, I would still have to alter a purchased digital planner for my personal needs.

As it turns out, I only need to purchase one application and it is a one-time fee under CA$70, unlike many applications today which are cloud based and now require monthly/yearly subscription fees. For someone on a restricted budget, I am so thankful I can still find applications I can download and use on my computer. I totally get the need for cloud based applications but I feel these companies are doing a disservice to those who don’t need it or are restricted financially. Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox. lol

You might be wondering how much time this takes compared to a handwritten journal/planner or just using MS Word like I was using. There is, of course, a learning curve which means it will take some time initially to learn how to work with the digital planners and which software/apps you prefer to use. The time it takes to learn depends upon your current skill level with the computer/tablet/iPad you are using and how comfortable you are with working with and altering graphics.

I do recommend trying several different applications (you can usually download free trial versions) if they are within your budget. I have some older software programs to experiment with which I purchased when I had the money. These programs are now cloud based so I don’t have the more updated software. They were enough to use for comparison with other programs so I could determine which programs worked best and whether I wanted to spend the money to upgrade any of them or buy a different one. Discovering a far less expensive program was another God send (it was mentioned in the Facebook group by someone). This program is much easier to use than the more expensive ones which means it greatly reduces the time to learn it. It also means once I’ve learned it, the time to create my pages from beginning to end is fairly equal to if not better than making them by hand. I was only using the bare nuts and bolts of MS Word so it was no where near as pretty. Any increased time in my planner to create beauty makes my artist’s brain sing with joy.

I was able to do my morning bible study in the same amount of time I was doing it before when writing my reflections in MS Word and adding my notes in my journaling bible. This can easily replace that process without increasing my time with that task.

My daily journaling may take more or less time depending on how creative I get. Even if it takes a bit more time, it will be worth it because of the added benefits I get with having it all in a searchable PDF format. I can’t stress this enough. Granted MS Word is searchable but I had some in MS Word and some in handwritten form. I went to MS Word originally so I could ease the strain on my wrist when I was doing my morning pages. Then I realized I could search it when I wanted to refer back to past entries. But my bible studies and my calendar which has my appointments, work schedule and bible reading noted in it, was handwritten. These were not searchable which made it really difficult to find anything I need to go back and reference. I tried indexing but that didn’t help. Plus, I can have all my journals in one place.

What can I say, I’m a digital girl at heart, and it turns out I was wrong. Digital planners/journals ARE for me, they satisfy my artist, writer and analytical minds.

Well, here is a bit of an update. I discovered if I save my PDF in Xodo as a flattened file then all my entries I made in Xodo are made permanent and can then be selected to be highlighted, underlined or other things. It also reduced the size of the file significantly. The good thing is I can still open the PDF up in my graphic designer program with all its layers in tact.

Okay…. so….. I’m learning more than one thing in a day…..

In case you are wondering, the graphic designer program I found is called Affinity Designer. Every time I work with it, I’m amazed with its functionality.

The three programs I’m using on my Windows 10 computer for working with my digital planner are:

1. Xodo
2. Affinity Designer
3. Foxit Phantom PDF

I tried a few others but these gave me the functionality I desired and are within my budget.

 

 

Focus, mindset, learning and taking my time…

I am taking my time with this one and totally loving it.

I wasn’t sure if I would stay with the same color palette when I added color to the puppy. I am glad I did! I love how they are both developing. Other than the white acrylic paint I used to tone down the background, everything is done in watercolor with a bit of the Elegant Writer when I first start building shadows.

I feel like I need to talk about my state of mind the past month or so. I have made mention that I’m on the search for a new job. This is what has kept me distracted from my art and a bit off balance. It’s okay. It is important to allow our focus to shift to those things which are important in our lives. Though art is important, searching for a job and finding the right one that fits for me is even more important.

I have learned over the past few years, the importance of understanding who we are and what makes us tick. It has been an interesting deep dive. I knew I had artistic ability and I also knew I am very logical. After working in IT (information technology), I had grown to believe my logical side was the strongest and didn’t see the creative aspects I incorporated into my work. Since taking up pencil, paper, paint and pen again, I have come to realize I am equally creative and logical and have been using creativity to help me in my work. It is so easy to mistake creativity as just a product of what our logical mind is working on and not thinking of it as being creative at all. We can so easily overlook that our creativity is really supporting our logical thinking to help us find solutions or build new concepts.

I use logic to work through problems and creativity to find alternative solutions. It is an interesting balance. Logically, I step myself through a process of asking myself questions to hopefully reach a conclusion. If I don’t know something, then I know I need to do some research. Sometimes the research doesn’t follow a linear path or logical path. Creatively, I know I can explore this even deeper by experimenting and exploring things which may appear to have no connection whatsoever to what I want to learn.

Something I found interesting is, what happens, when I step away from an issue or something I am trying to learn or understand, with the intention of going back to it later. All I want to do is give my mind a bit of a rest, so I get involved in something that isn’t related to what I was working on. Then out of the blue, a connection will be made, a solution found, or an answer is given for that problem I had set aside for a bit. I have had this happen quite often and my brain does this happy little neuron dance when it does.

I have this pension towards learning. It surprises me sometimes, when I look back on all of my skills and the amount of knowledge I have. They were acquired through alternative learning. In other words, I didn’t learn them in the typical classroom setting, or through typical training through the company or companies I worked for. I found alternative resources, sometimes reading a book, sometimes watching a video online, sometimes just playing around with an application to see what I could discover and other times just talking with people. Then there are times when I’m playing a video game with my daughter, I discover something new which can send me down another avenue for learning something unexpected.

It frustrates me sometimes when businesses or potential employers filter out applications all because a person doesn’t have education credentials. I have taught my daughter that she can learn anything she wants to learn and she can do it on her own. She can choose to take a class, or read a book, or explore the various options available which provide the information she wants to learn and understand. For us, everyday life is an educational resource and education is a life long endeavor.

Why is it potential employers don’t see what this means for them in the potential employee who applies for the position they have advertised is available? This question has baffled me. When things baffle me, I research. I have also come to this conclusion. If a potential employer doesn’t recognize the brilliance within a person who is constantly evolving and learning through alternative methods, then we would not be a good fit anyway.

This just means it might take longer to find that perfect fit for us both (employer and employee) in my job search. That is okay. It means my focus might be shifted a bit and I might not progress as quickly as I have in the past on the pieces of artwork I am working on. That is fine. In fact, I am finding with this change in focus, I am not just more thoughtful in regards to my job search, I am also more thoughtful in regards to my artwork.

In learning to take chances in my job search, I am also learning to take more chances in my artwork. I love how changing my mindset in one area bleeds into my mindset in other areas and allows me to expand in ways I never dreamed possible.

What ways do you like to learn? Do you find your interest to learn is widespread or narrowly focused? I have to say my interests are widespread with no boundaries on what I like to learn and I learn through all my senses.

 

Handmade stencils and life

I’ve been working on designing and creating my own stencils. In my previous post I wrote about two of those designs.  Since then I created two more designs and cut them out. Then I did a test to see how well they worked.

Below are pictures of the stencils after I tested them.

The blue stencil (crosses) was cut out of a Casemate Index Divider. These are 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. letter size dividers which are generally used in notebooks. This divider is very thin and therefore quite flimsy. During testing this divider lifted a lot when dabbing with a makeup sponge which made it difficult to have clean edges (the paint got under the stencil). I also needed to have less paint on my makeup sponge.

The other three stencils were cut out of Avery Insertable Plastic Dividers. These are also 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. letter size dividers. They are thicker than the Casemate Index Divider. During testing these stencils stayed in place better and didn’t lift as easily when dabbing with a makeup sponge.

Here are pictures of the tests I did. I first spread a layer of acrylic paint over the page. Then I used black paint with the first two stencils.

The third stencil I used white paint. It was a bit thinner than the black paint but also this stencil is the one that was cut out of the thinner divider material. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when applying the paint which is why the edges are sloppy.

The fourth test is a bit harder to see but shows up nicely on the white paint. I wanted to see how they would look layered and I like the effect. I used a magenta acrylic paint.

What I learned from these stencils is I prefer the Avery dividers over the cheaper Casemate dividers for making stencils. I cut them out using a box cutter. I like the control I have over the larger handle of the box cutter and it was easier on my hands and wrist than a craft knife. Maybe in the future I’ll see if I can use my jpeg images of these stencils with my Silhouette to cut them out of actual stencil material. However, I have found hand cutting them is relaxing, enjoyable and a good mental distraction.

I like the idea of using just portions of these stencils for layering backgrounds as well as using them with my homemade gelli plate. I have several other stencil designs which I’ll be working on and cutting out over the next several weeks.

Unfortunately, this is about all I have accomplished since my last post. Life is taking precedence. Even when I have a few moments to be creative, it is difficult to focus. Creating the geometric designs and mandala type designs for my stencils helps to bring some creativity into my life and helps me to feel like I’m not avoiding my artwork entirely.

Tonight, as I write, this is really the first time I’ve picked up any paints since my last post where I had worked with watercolor. The reason for that isn’t easy to reveal. Sometimes I get in an emotional place where I have a difficult time finding any energy to work with paints. When I’m in such a place, all I want is for things to go well. Paints and I have this unstable relationship right now where I tend to go dark with them and then don’t know what to do next. This creates a sort of anxiety stress, so when I’m in an emotionally stressful place, I just don’t want to add any more stress. I, therefore, try and avoid it.

Of late, I’ve been on shaky ground. A lot of life requirements which could no longer be put off are causing stress and anxiety. Any little additional stress just compounds the situation. This is why I haven’t done much with paints lately. Drawing geometric shapes and mandalas help to de-stress me or at least give me a break from the stressors in life which I feel I have no control over.

I am trying to learn to let go. This isn’t easy for me. However, life/God/the Universe has a way of forcing the issue.

After I did the tests with my stencils I decided to play around with the page. In the process when trying to splatter some black paint, I ended up dropping the bottle and spilling a good amount of the paint on the page. Trust me when I say the amount of paint spilled had me just looking at my page and thinking I couldn’t make it any worse. Therefore, I thought what the heck and I decided to add water, let it run around the page a bit as I tilted it in all different directions, then blotted it with a paper towel. The resulting pattern in the black paint was fascinating.

What I didn’t tell you is I had kept the cutouts from the stencils. I thought some of them might make a good mask, especially the large and medium size crosses and the other odd shapes could be used with my gelli plate to make some interesting patterns.

When I was trying to decide what to do about all that black, I laid down the cross stencil over the page and really liked the patterns I saw in the large cross. This gave me the idea to try using the cutout of the large cross as a mask and sponge white paint around the outside of it. I did this three times. Then I used a wet wipe with some white paint to try and soften the edges.  I used a section of the cross stencil to paint some black crosses around the lower part of the page. I’m starting to like the page so I know I’m not done with it  yet. I did decide however to set it aside for now since it is around 1am.

I was wondering how my choice in reading and studying the bible would influence my creativity. I knew it would, just wasn’t sure how long or in what way. Therefore, I’m not surprised it has, just a bit surprised it is doing so already with having only started my studies just shy of a month ago.

I want to write a bit about how my studies are going so far. I’m up to Chapter 27 in Genesis. I have found that using McGee’s recordings in “Thru the Bible” series inspires me to study the scripture deeper. I am almost always mentally challenging McGee’s interpretation and I’ll admit I often do not agree with him. I am not sure if it is because of my lack of knowledge of the rest of the bible or if it is because he and I are very different people.

Listening to his recordings does two things. It reminds me why I don’t attend church and because they are recordings I can first read the scripture, then listen to the recordings, and then read the scripture again, looking at it deeper to hear what it is telling me. And I can replay the recordings or go back to certain parts of the recording to help me understand why I feel a certain way about what he says. I can’t do this when attending church and just listening to a sermon leaves me with feelings that I don’t understand and at a loss as to what to do with them. I’m realizing I need to take things apart, digest them and put them back together again in a way that makes sense to me. Thereby, creating my own interpretation.

For example, McGee speaks about the description given of Esau and Jacob. The bible describes Esau as a hairy man and Jacob as a smooth man. For those who don’t know, Esau and Jacob are twin brothers. McGee compared Esau to being like a caveman or a hippie. What one needs  to remember is McGee’s recordings started in 1967 for Thru the Bible and I keep this in mind when I listen to his recordings. He considered Esau like a hippie because from his perspective hippies were hairy (they had long hair) and didn’t bathe much. I guess in his eyes he felt cavemen and hippies to be very similar. I would disagree with this but I do so from the perspective of someone who was born in 1960.

I sometimes feel McGee has a closed mind. His comments regarding books outside of the bible and hippies are just two examples. When I read the description of Esau and Jacob, my interpretation was more of Esau being a man with a lot more body hair like some men have today, while Jacob had much less body hair like other men today.  I believe the description was meant to emphasize how different the two brothers were, not just in thought but also in physical form. Knowing they are twin brothers without this description might lead us to believe they were more alike than they were, so the description aids us in understanding the deeper nature of their conflict. To go even deeper is the fact that there is also a mention of Rebekah, their mother, feeling the strife between them even as she carried them prior to their birth. I don’t believe Esau was anything like a caveman or a hippie. This is where McGee and I disagree on a fundamental level.

I remember as a child being told the the reason the bible is considered a living bible is because everyone who reads and studies it will receive their own interpretation or  understanding of what the scriptures mean to them. Therefore, I use McGee’s recordings as a catalyst. Without that catalyst, I have no doubt my attempt to study the bible would end like all the other times I tried and gave up. This time is very different from the other times and I find myself drawn towards my studies first thing after waking if I have a couple hours available before going to work. I also find myself drawn to study more than one chapter at a time even if I’m short on time. I try not to do so because I don’t want to feel rushed. I’m both surprised and fascinated that this is happening.

In other news, last week, my daughter and I needed to go into Vancouver. While there we decided to go to the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was our first time there. I am so glad we went. I got to see my very first Monet.

I was thrilled knowing I was standing in front of an actual Monet. I tried not to be disappointed. I couldn’t understand why I was disappointed. When I looked at it, I was left with a feeling that maybe it had lost its luster. It seemed dull or a bit out of focus when I looked at it and thought about other paintings but this is probably due to my lack of knowledge on Monet paintings. I have done a bit of research since then and discovered Monet did several paintings of the same subject in various conditions. I have no doubt the feelings invoked by the painting weren’t in fact disappointment but my reaction to the subject matter and the subdued nature of it.

What fascinated me even more about our trip through the art gallery was the exhibition “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg” and my reaction to it. I don’t think I could do it justice in describing what it was about the exhibit that fascinated me. I could probably look at just one of the paintings for hours because of all the layers and fine details, and OMG the bright colors and patterns. My mind was blown away. All I could think was ‘how does he do that?!?!’ over and over again as I looked closer. In truth, when looking at the paintings at a distance the subject matter didn’t really fascinate me. It wasn’t until I got up close and saw the details. That is when the fascination kicked in.

I am so glad we went to Vancouver when we did and took the time to go to the art gallery. I’m enjoying my studies. Work is okay, I still enjoy interacting with all the people. Even though all of this seems to be going well, mentally I’m not in a good place right now. I honestly do not know how people do it. How do they live pay check to pay check trying to feed their family if they are only making minimum wage? Maybe it is worse for me because I had a really good paying job that I took for granted. All I can think about sometimes is that it should be a crime for people who work to not get paid enough to support themselves.

I saw a sign at a company once where I knew they paid minimum wage to the workers on the front line, which stated they supported a program to end child hunger. My first thought was, “then pay your workers enough so they can feed their children!”. Minimum wage doesn’t pay enough to enable the employee to support themselves let alone a family. It makes me sick when I think about it. I can’t tell you how helpless I feel to do anything about our current situation which if it doesn’t change could be quite devastating. And yet I know there are people who are in worse situations which I cannot even fathom right now. It scares me to death to think we could end up in one of those worse situations. I need to have some things done around the house but I’m afraid to spend the money and yet I know if I don’t those things could and will get worse. So, in a few weeks I’ll bite the bullet, find out how much it will cost, and spend the money.

I stopped writing this last night and went to bed. It was getting so late and I needed some distance to decide if I wanted to include all that I had written so far. I needed a fresh mind. At first, I thought I would delete a good bit of what I wrote since the intention of this blog was to be about my artwork. As I consider what I had written and whether I should delete anything, I ask myself, “Would I be denying the real artist within me by omitting anything I have written?” Yes, some of it is very personal. However, I cannot separate the rest of my life from my life as an artist. When I go out into the world, I do so as an artist. When I sit down to do a painting or drawing, I do so with the weight of my life and all that has influenced me, good and bad. Therefore, if I am to be true in my writing about being an artist, I need to include all areas of my life because no matter what it all influences what I create.

I also have to remember, I am not just an artist who draws or paints, I am also an artist who writes and a writer who is an artist. Writing helps me to process and that includes this blog.

When I worked or rather played around with my page last night, I got my hands into it. I had used a gift card for the first layer in spreading the paint I had dribbled all over the page in a haphazard manner. I can’t use a makeup sponge to dab on paint through a stencil or around a mask and not get paint on my fingers. I wasn’t liking how the splotches of color looked when I tried to add some layer of colors so I just started dribbling on paint and haphazardly smearing it around with my fingers. I didn’t use a brush at all on this page. The closest thing I used was a makeup sponge, a wet wipe and the gift card to move paint around. I still have some paint on me this morning. 🙂  Yes, I’m normally very fastidious about not getting too much paint on me and when I do to then get every bit off of me.

I am both fascinated and fearful of the changes which I am experiencing in my life. It is a scary place to be in right now. If it was just me, I think it wouldn’t be so frightening. Knowing I have the responsibility of my daughter and I am her sole support compounds the fear. Knowing I have a breaking point has me very weary and watchful that I avoid that breaking point at all costs. It is obvious I’m seeking answers, a resolution and a way through to a life that is less stressful or anxiety driven. For now, I’m doing what I can, which might mean that art takes a back seat if I have to work a second job to make ends meet.

If you have made it this far through my rambling and spilling out of my life, thank you. You are appreciated. Thanks for being here. ❤ ❤ ❤

~Patti