Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Next in our Soul Journal, we were to create three 2-page spreads overpainted with gesso to begin 3 potpourri exercises.  We were given a list of steps and told to mix them up.  I had numbered my pages 1-6 freehand and after completion of each spread, the numbers stayed fairly visible.

I started with the first item:   Fill the page with descriptive adjectives (Use a permanent ink pen).  I used my Italian/English dictionary to come up with adjectives & wrote both in. 

I had some liquid acrylic which I dripped on the pages and smooshed them both together and then dabbed on a pale yellow paint with a sponge.  I wrote left-handed in the lower right corner in pencil my grocery list but you can't really see it.

Next I cut out a silhouette of a girl from Seventeen magazine and stencilled around it in dark red and splattered the same paint across the pages. I add silver duct tape on the edges and sanded and antiqued it.

The second potpourri exercise included a similar list of steps to mix up and apply.  After applying gesso, I stamped with some hand carved numbers and Stabilo permanent stamp pad and cut out all sorts of numbers from magazines.  Then I painted over with diluted brown paint.  Then I blobbed some yellow acrylic paint & again smooshed the two pages together.  I used a fork to mark the edges of my page in dark green paint.
Next we were to outline our hands six times using permanent ink pens.  By the last ones my fingers were all lined with multi-colored ink.

I scribbled a little with caran d'ache and stitched the right-hand page edges using fine silver wire.  Finally I add some meaningful words, again with hand carved stamps & permanent stamp pad.  I really love carving stamps.
 Took a rest after that.
I'm exploring joining ArtistsoftheRoundTable Artists' Journals Sketchbooks Workshop using Lynn Perella's book as a jumping off point.

Journaling

ME & JOURNALING

A couple of months ago, I joined in a yahoo group that uses composition journals as their basis for artistic journaling. Over the last few years I have taken various journaling classes but have never felt compelled to actually start something that would be meaningful to me.



As I am aging (62?!) and memory is growing weak, once again I've turned to journaling to create art & note both the sublime & the banal of my daily, weekly, monthly? doings. I've picked up lots of journaling tips and connections to many wonderful supplies & blogs but still haven't felt much direction. I've recently joined Soul Journaling yahoo group created by Sarah Whitmire and am in the process of creating pages based on her 22 intial prompts from http://www.caspiana.com/. One of the first ones was to create a page symbolic of a great protector to protect me from outside & inside critics as I create my art. I included the face of my maternal grandmother at age 15. She always seemed to be reserved & stoic. I figured she'd be good at warding off unpleasantness. This is my complete page:



The other page was created as a way to "claim" my journal and to express both negative and positive things about my art, my life, etc. We covered up these writings as, for me, a way to cast out what's come before and move on to more positive thinking. We decorated the page with multi colors and fonts so that "anybody" picking up our book would know without a doubt who the journal belongs to.
There's a somewhat new art form called "inchies", the premise being to create art in a tiny format of one inch. These are then exchanged in yahoo groups, Art festivals, etc. So our next exercise involved cutting one inch squares from magazines according to a 24-item list, arranging in a pleasing manner to see if any themes or stories emerge. I have to confess this is not in my comfort zone so mine are placed rather randomly.




Our next task was to paint over or age the page and draw different markings around some of the inchies and add eight words describing my pictures. Sarah's philosophy is that no page is ever really done so I may be back at this one.




The next 2 pages were an exercise in creating interesting backgrounds using various types of tapes: bright orange ducktape, silver duct tape, a couple colors of masking tape, etc. We were supposed to write & fill both pages with "I forgot to tell you..." secrets, sayings but I 'forgot'. So my pages are just paint, tape & sanding.


That's all for today. I'll add more photos when finished.
I've been working right along with my Soul Journaling. The next project was to draw/create a symbolic house and people it with paper dolls of everyone who lives there. It's just me and my black pug, Bailey, and my fawn pug, Mitzi, and my remaining parakeet. This was to be where I currently live or a home from your past where you felt happiest and safest. This is entirely ficticious except the house number. I loved collaging all the foreign language text to the buildings.