Art Journal Page: Words Behind a Brick Wall

 While I was making today's art journal page, I actually remembered to keep a camera by me so I could snap a few pictures of the page in progress as I went. I enjoy my own blog posts better when I have pics of the stages of a page, so I'm assuming it works that way for readers as well.

Here goes. 

I started, as usual, with some diary writing on a blank page. This began sedately enough but quickly devolved into the pen and paper equivalent of incoherent scribbly screeching. The page actually looks pretty psychotic at this point, but it's all good.

 I colored over it with a couple of my daughter's Crayolas.

Then I drew a rough brick background with a sharpie, painted over it with some very thinned down acrylic cream colored paint,  and added a layer of journaling in pencil.

And here are a couple of the finished page, embellished with more paint, some words, and paper motifs.

 It says, "Words behind a brick wall add character and mystique." I was kind of thinking about that as I worked the page, obscuring my journaling, "walling" it in, in effect. I thought about how much is made in these days of the virtues of authenticity, being real, letting down walls, emotional intimacy, and etc. These are each cliches in their own right. And in all seriousness, I do believe we are the better off for being capable of emotional intimacy. Still. . .  I retain an appreciative regard for secrets, the enigmatic, the elusive quality of silences colored with unspoken words, the mystery of the half told tale.

In Shadowlands, one of my favorite movies, Anthony Hopkins' character says (and I'm quoting sketchily from memory here):

"Why do you look at me like that?"
"Like what?" (Debra Winger's character)
"As though I were lying to you. I mean what I say."
"I know you mean what you say Jack, but you never say it all, now do you?"
"Well, one can't say it all. It would take too much time."

I just love that scene, probably partly because it's so well acted.  But it's true. One can't say it all. Sometimes because it would take too much time, most often because of all we lose in translation.

End of introspective musings for the day.

Hope everyone's year is off to a good start! :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day.

Christmas Day Art Journal Page

 This is the art journal page I did on Christmas. Since the majority of my relatives calamitously came down with the flu and our holiday gathering was cancelled the very morning of Christmas, I unexpectedly had time for such things. All in all, it was not a terrible holiday though  it had an overlay of melancholy as we missed everyone and felt bad for all the sick ones! But I enjoyed the moments I spent in the living room with my art journaling supply box, collaging and scribbling away while my kids played on the floor.

I had several clippings tucked away in the pages of various books and boxes (because I have yet to really organize such things), clippings that I've loved but was saving for the right moment. For instance, the dress pictures on this page were torn from an old piece of wrapping paper originally from a department store in Italy. My grandmother had been using it to line a drawer or something. I was helping her unpack when she moved houses a few years ago, happened to admire the paper, and she generously gave it to me. :)

The dress dummy was clipped from a magazine, and the black and white images are from a movie illustrated copy of Jane Eyre. I loved them too much to just leave them in the book, and I like the way they look on this page, although they don't exactly tie in with the theme-- on the other hand this page is mostly theme-less, just some random elements I liked and thought happened to look well together to cheer me up on a lonely holiday. Mr. Rochester is included because he is my one true love! (Er, apart from H, that is.)

Blue Christmas Art Journal Page

Merry Christmas.

I created this page in my art journal last night, but little did I know then how fitting my color choice would be. This is a blue Christmas. Within the last 48 hours about a third of my relatives have fallen ill with the flu, some from every household. Up until the last, the healthiest ones were still intending on a small get together, but as of this morning even more people are sick and so Christmas has been cancelled. :(

H, the kids, and I are all well and would just as soon keep it that way, so. . . guess we'll be spending a quiet day at home. Might go out to eat somewhere for lunch; haven't decided yet.

Maybe we'll see the family at New Years. I sure hope everyone gets well soon.

Goth Girl Mixed Media Collage Art Journal Page

No wordy post for today. I guess this art journal page and the little goth girl that materialized for it speak for themselves. It was fun to work on. It's one of my favorite art journal pages that I've done so far--  I have some affection for the inner goth kid, it seems. Mixed media used include: watersoluble pastels, acrylic paint, a white paint pen, black sharpie, glue, and fabric.

Entering Forever Night's challenge (just for fun, I realize this page is not all that dark).

How I Use Art Journaling as Art Therapy

I'm finding that art journaling really is a therapeutic process, especially the more so as I let go of consciously controlling the evolution of a page and just follow the flow. These days I often find myself reaching for my journal when I'm a bit frustrated or stressed, and it usually happens that by the time I've finished a page I'm feeling lighter and a measure of tranquility has re-established itself. I don't think it's just a distraction from negative emotions-- the journaling seems actually to help work them out as the frustration and negative energy gets channeled into the page via squiggles, sharp lines, energetic scribbling, or what have you. Catharsis. I like to notice how I'm feeling as I work. . . thus simply making for a very inexpensive and self directed art therapy. A win all round, in my book. :)

When I began this particular page I was regrettably a bit edgy and irritable. I picked up my journal and started writing in pencil, in different directions and handwriting fonts all across the page. After this was done I went over it again with more writing. I did this a few times. I just wrote whatever I was thinking. It was very free flowing, unfiltered, and spontaneous. (Venting, you might say. :P) Then I colored over all of it with a blue neocolor water soluble pastel. By the time I finished that layer of coloring, I was already much calmer. Swirling water over the page with a wet brush was an additionally soothing enterprise.

Once the page was dry, I was intending to doodle over it with a black sharpie and be done. However. . . my sharpie was not in my art supply box! I spent some time in futile searching all over my house, any place I thought I might have been likely to leave a black sharpie. All to no avail. This was disappointing. Somewhat grumpily, I sat down at the page again and grabbed the nearest supplies to hand, which happened to be my daughter's box of sidewalk chalk and a tube of glue.

I drew frustrated marks in chalk on the page and then rubbed them in vigorously with my fingertips. Then I dotted glue all over the page and smeared it over the chalk, again using my fingers. Now this. . . was actually looking rather good. I wish I had taken pictures at this stage. Pencilled journaling was showing through the blue, which was now mottled and softened by chalky colors, and made a bit shiny by the coat of glue.

I stared at it trying to think what to do next. Taking a cue from projects I've seen on Judy Balzer and Carolyn Dube's blogs, I began hunting for "people in the paint". Lo and behold, it did seem as though a shadowy shaped couple was trying to emerge from the depths. They were even holding hands! This was better than I had hoped for. I outlined them with paint pens, highlighting them here and there with neocolors to bring out their shape a bit more. Then I fingerpainted with some acrylics paint around them, did some more journaling over this, added my words, "If you trust the process you will see life emerging from the depths", and  layered more chalk, coloring, and smeared glue to the page until I was happy with it.
I also gave the woman, "life", a glued on fabric face.

I can't really describe how satisfying it felt to work on this and what a surprise the final page turned out to be. I am so glad to have discovered art journaling! This was the best thing to have come out of the hyperemesis. The fly in the ointment is I spelled "emerging" wrong, but meh. We embrace imperfection around here! :)

Until next time,
Leah

Painting Circles For Relaxation (an art therapy exercise for my art journal)

Even though it is has been nearly three weeks since the hyperemesis began to fade away and I am  functional again, I find I still get exhausted so easily. I am bone tired right now and all I've really done today is take care of my kids. I'm trying to be patient. I guess it takes a little while to gain one's strength back. Little Guy (my seven month old) has been sleeping poorly the last few nights and that may also be part of it.

But enough of my moaning. I will write about my art journaling adventures, which is what this online meta journal of mine is at least loosely about in any case. Yesterday both babies (I still think of the two year old as a baby) took blessedly long naps, and I spent a happy couple of hours resting, curled up on the sofa with my laptop and a mug of chamomile tea. During this cozy and silent interval, I did a lot of blog surfing, reading, and sprinkling of comments of good cheer across the blogosphere. It's incredible-- all of the amazingly talented and sensitive bloggers you can find just by following links for part of an afternoon. :) One blog that I paused at for awhile was Art Therapy Reflections by Karen Wallace. I felt very pulled into the idea of an art therapy exercise for de-stressing she suggested to someone in a comment on this post.

 "Take a large piece of paper. Have lots of paint. Start by doing some deep breathing and centering. Standing and moving the whole body, make large arm movements and paint large circles. Work big until your body feels relaxed and stretched, then start coming in smaller by making smaller shapes while saying out loud or to yourself things you want to release about the day. Keep working smaller until you reach the size you want to continue working at. Then paint one thing that you enjoyed about the day. This painting usually is abstract with lots of colors and feelings. It is a good stress releaser, try it. Whenever you need to release and de-stress."

That sounded so good, I thought, so relaxing, the idea of just painting/coloring/drawing circles to relax and unwind. I filed it away in my mind as something to try someday, and today (again during nap time, oddly enough) I actually did so.  I tweaked the idea a little bit, as I didn't have a very large piece of paper on hand, and I never got around to the "something I enjoyed about the day" part because I became so engrossed in my circles. But anyway.

Using water soluble pastels, I started with drawing turquoise circles, then filled them in with concentric circles in reds, blues, and yellow. I painted over these to bring out the color. Then in the background I drew soft wavy lines in dark blue, lightly colored over the background with yellow, and added water to make it blurry and greenish. I loved the way the background looked. My circles seemed a little boring, though, so I kept adding layers of paint and water to make them brighter. Then I painted their outer rims in red to give them a little more oomph, but something still felt lacking. Impulsively, I started to circle one with a black sharpie marker, and, wow, it popped. "Where have you been all this art journal pages life, oh black sharpie?" I thought, and it kind of took off from there-- outlining, circling, dotting. Below are pics of the end result, this time taken by H, who is better with a camera than I am. I will say this was a great de-stressor, and I was quite happy feeling by the time it was done. It's a happy page.

The Soul Has An Interpreter (jane eyre, first art journal page)

Jane Eyre has always been one of my favorite novels, ever since that first reading at 13 when I fell in love with Mr. Rochester and shivered in terror along with Jane at the strange hollow laughs emanating from mysterious chambers in the attic.

It so happened that when I was deliberating a theme for my first art journal page that I was in the middle of yet another re-reading of Jane Eyre. One of my copies of the book (I have three) is illustrated with pictures from the movie-- the one with Charlotte Gainsborough. I have to say that's one of my favorite film versions of Jane Eyre, mostly on account of the casting, which I feel was excellent. Of course it was a disappointingly abridged version of the story, but no matter. The images in my movie illustrated book were awesome, and I decided to raid them for my would be artistic purposes.

Here is a picture of the background page I prepared. I drew some spirals and squiggles over a sheet of white water color paper with a scarlet water soluble pastel. Then I colored over this in blues, violets, and aquamarines, which I blended with a wet paintbrush. I thought it needed a little muting at this point, and so I colored lightly over it with a white pastel, and did a little doodling and scribbling with a black one over that. Then I blended those in using baby wipe, going over the whole page in a circular motion. I finished with a few more scarlet swirls in the upper left hand corner, and ended up with this.

Sorry these are not the greatest quality photos. I think if you click on them they get bigger. 

Then I used a blue glitter gel pen to line the page and cover it with handwritten quotes from the book. Being able to read these was not of primary concern; this step was more for the sake of adding another layer of visual interest to the background, and for having some recognizable (at least to me) words from the story peeking around the images I would paste in.

Here is the final product. I combined my movie pictures with some images cut from magazines and a square of book paper (not from Jane Eyre). I pasted them on with Mod Podge, did a little more doodling and some outlining with the water soluble pastels and a silver glitter gel pen, and added this quote as my main text:

"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter, an often unconscious, though still a faithful interpreter, in the eye."

I have to admit that on the whole I am liking this. It's a little more startling than what I first envisioned, but the quirkiness of the juxtapositions suits my mood of the moment, and I even like the wildness of the colors behind all those staring Victorians. I'm not sure it would win any prizes for visual coherence or harmony, but for personal journaling purposes, and especially for a first attempt, I'm satisfied. And yes, based on my first experience I would highly recommend art journaling for anyone looking to have some relaxing fun and recover a sense of playfulness. This is awesome!

Thanks for reading,
Leah