2013: A Year of Action

A portrait me at 18, before the weight of the world and consequences of my actions came down on me. The nose is wrong, but he made me look like a total goddess!

This is the final day of the year. Over the past week, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to get out of the coming year. I always use the time between Christmas and New Years to reflect. I decided to get real with myself this year. After I thought long and hard about the current state of my life, I came to one conclusion. All of the problems I have faced are ones that came about due to lack of action. I am an Olympic level procrastinator and avoider. When I have problems, be they real or imagined, I shut down and retreat. This is a learned behavior. I have had a very tumultuous life. Stressful relationships from family to romantic partners have lead me to beat a retreat away from everyone in hopes of peace. Stress is one of the biggest triggers for depression for me. Depression and I have our own sordid history that I do not want to repeat, so I stay vigilant that I am only briefly graced by its presence in my life.


I am tired of all of this dragging my feet and avoiding things. There are certain things I do have to try to avoid, as hard as that may be (perfumes and chemicals, at the top of that list), but I avoid things that are good for me and that is going to end. I fully intend to embrace acting on things this coming year. I will exercise and do things that will result in weight loss. I will get a job. If I am forced to take a job I don't really want, I will work towards getting one I do want. I will clean my apartment and brush my teeth and all that stuff that you may slip on, especially when you do not have to be anywhere or see anyone. Above all, I will take action and live up to my full creative potential. I will inject myself into a community that embraces my weirdness and encourages me artistically. I will embrace challenges and develop my skills properly. I will learn how to make something and market it so I can start taking steps toward living my dream of making a living at my art. I will become fully myself, as I should have been all along.

What are you inspired to do in 2013?

Journal Pages in Progress

I have finally started doing actual journal pages. I truly didn't intend for there to be so much orange and yellow, but I like the way they are turning out so far. I think each will be more simple, as my usual style is, then I will dive into some grungy, messy stuff.

This one, I feel, only calls for some text and cleaning up of the edges and black lines. The background is some super cheap water soluble crayons from Daiso, that I worked in swirls as I dissolved the crayon. I collaged some shapes I cut out of some of my play pages. The sun's rays are a page I really hated. I love the way it looks here. Then, I traced everything in Sharpie and doodled with a fine technical pen. I used a gold paint pen to do the sun rays and a white paint pen for the dots on the waves. The sun is colored in with some Inktense pencils. I am also using Inktense pencils to extend the waves so they reach the edges. That bit is cropped out. I intend to use them for the lettering, which will go along the guide lines you see. I am working on what I will say. I want it to be something really good, since this is the first page of that particular journal.

The other page is one that I made my background with Pan Pastels. I temporarily sealed with aerosol hairspray. When that was dry, I sealed it with matt medium. Then, I sketched a girl, colored her in with Inktense pencils, and accented with a black technical pen and a white paint marker. I haven't drew a whole face in years. I really like it, even if she does look a little orange. I will have to think about what I will do for the rest of the page. 

A few things that I have learned...I LOVE Inktense pencils! They will figure prominently in my work. While I love them, I have to make sure to be careful when going over fine lines with a brush. My girl looks like she has a little bit of a black eye from a slight mishap.  Oops!  I have a lot of learning to do with the pastels. I need to have a lighter hand with my pencil sketches. While I was able to erase a lot ot my sketch lines, the neck looks a little funny. So do a couple of other areas, but not enough to make me not like the overall effect. I know I have said it before, but I am having a very good time working out my creativity again. I am very glad I picked up on art journaling. The encouragement that I am getting to learn and grow and make a habit of creating is such a valuable gift.

Christmas money is the best!

I went on an art supply spree today with the money I received for Christmas. I am exhausted and excited to try these things I purchased. Here they are, at a glance:

My goodies included:

• 24 Derwent Intense pencils
• A bunch of glue sticks
• some Pan pastels
• Some technical pens
• 2 white paint markers
• A small container of Glossy Acrylic medium/Varnish
• A medium size container of Matte Medium
• A sketchpad with 100lb weight paper
• A sketchpad with cold pressed watercolor paper
• A water brush
• A Tim Holtz Distress inkpad in Walnut Stain
• 2 color shapers-- They look like brushes, only with a solid rubber tip. Used to push draw patterns in wet paint. I have seen someone use them to apply liquid frisket, which is a very smart way not to ruin brushes.
• An enameled metal butcher tray  that I intend to use as a heat proof base when I use my versa tool to cut stencils.
• And a small pad of Martha Stewart paper in Halloween pattern that was on clearance

I came home, ate, and immediately went to work gessoing and drawing and painting base coats of paint. I also tested out my Inktense pencils. I think these will be better for smaller details, rather than backgrounds. They make a pigment stick that I would like to get for that purpose when I am able.

I received an ad in the mail a couple of weeks ago that had a nice arrangement of graphics set in squares and rectangles.  I painted in each of the shapes with acrylic paint last night. Today, I set out to doodle a design in each and every shape, using technical pens and white paint markers. Mission accomplished.

I am going to finish my second scary movie of the evening, then sleep like the dead. I haven't done this much walking in ages. And I am going to bed happy in the knowledge that I got something finished. I don't know how it will be used, but it is complete. And I am also happy that I have a lot of new media to try out that I never played with before. Tomorrow is going to be another fun day!

A Fun Way to Use Eggshells

I have accomplished a lot of creative things for the past couple of days, but I have prepared two books to be altered into art journals and I made eggshell mosaics. Gluing pages together is not an exciting thing to see, but the eggshell mosaic experiment is pretty neat. Being my first time, I would have done a few things differently. Even so, a nice look is almost foolproof.

A few people have asked me, what is an eggshell mosaic. It is pretty simple. You find a surface you want to cover, paint a basecoat on it, brush on an adhesive, and crush pieces of cleaned eggshells, outer side up,  onto the glue. When it is on the adhesive, you ca add more cracks by pressing down with a toothpick, skewer, or pencil eraser,  until it looks the way you want it to. You keep doing this until the surface is covered. When that is dry and you straighten the edges, use a dye, ink, or stain of some sort to create color. I used a felt pad to dab a magenta alcohol ink all over mine, then strayed with very strong coffee. That didn't quite do it for me, so I dabbed on some black acrylic ink, sprayed with alcohol, wiping off the excess. I kept playing with it until it looked the way I wanted it to.  What will happen is most of the color will sink into the cracks. The eggshells may be stained, depending on what types of inks or dyes you apply. When it is completely dry, coat with your favorite varnish. I would venture to say embossing would be a nice clear coat. I used 2 coats of Diamond Glaze.

Here are the results.

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome, but I would do some things differently:

• The surface I used was one that was painted in a way I didn't like. It would have been better had I did a nice coating of black paint. I ended up having to take a Black Sharpie to a lot of gaps because the color showed through and didn't look so nice. Sharpie will smear when varnishing, so be warned. It actually worked toward the effect here, but it is better to do it the easier way.
• The reason I had to use a Sharpie in the first place was because I did not completely cover my surface with eggshells. In the future, I will make sure that I do.
• I used a gel medium as my adhesive, which was extremely thick. I would not recommend using a pasty adhesive. It was a little icky. Instead, I will probably use a bit more than a thin coating of Elmer's glue in small patches. That way, there will be a minimum of fuss and the glue will not dry before you are finished with the eggshell. Completely covering each glued section with eggshell before moving on is a good way to avoid large gaps. 
• Whatever color you use on your piece, make sure it is very thin and watery. The acrylic ink was a bit thick, not the viscosity, but the pigment. It completely coated my surface. That is why I ended up spraying with some alcohol. When you do that, some of the ink may come off, so there is a lot of experimentation involved, not necessarily a bad thing. At one point, I thought it looked like a pink lizard! 
• If your surface is cardboard or paper, you will be able to cut it into shapes with scissors, but I would make sure they are in the shapes you want before moving on. I would be too nervous punching them or trying to cut with a slide paper cutter. run them through a slide cutter.

I think it would be super cute to make a flower out of thick paper covered with eggshell mosaic. I am not sure how I am going to use the ones I completed, but I am excited to do more. Everything I used was found around my house. and the base and eggshells were things that would have ended up in the trash. If I was feeling ambitious, I could have even made natural dyes from stuff in my kitchen. There are lots of instructions on the web for doing that. I like crafts that make me feel good about myself!

Sketchy

Today, I did some sketching. I have many lips and eyes that are cut out of magazines. For a time, I was doing collages of eyes and doing a clear glass mosaic on top of them with black grout. It looked really great. Unfortunately, the pieces I made did not make it to Seattle. I had very limited space and had to leave a lot of precious items behind. So, I have these eyes and lips that were meant for more mosaic projects that really needed to be used.

I loosely glued some of the more interesting images to pages in my Moleskine journal and sketched them. I am pretty rusty with drawing, but I was pretty happy with them. I have a couple more pages to fill, then I can move on to other body parts, I suppose.

This is a sketch I did a couple of weeks ago. I just drew a few things in my apartment and  one outside my window. Don't worry if you can see that small one. I can barely see it up close. It is of a frame for a cool framed print my aunt bought for me. 

It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine.

Today the basis for what is our modern celebration of Christmas, the longest day of the year, the end of the world. Well, two out of three ain't bad. Somewhere, someone got an idea in their heads that the Mayan calendar ended today because it was the END OF THE WORLD. I guess no one stopped to think that it may be the end of the Mayan calendar because...well, their civilization collapsed and the calendar maker had to think of more pressing things to occupy his time. I find this apocalyptic paranoia somewhat fascinating. No matter how much reason or evidence is presented, some people refuse to believe that the calendar ending on this date is nothing less than a prophesy. Even the biggest rockstar astrophysicist around, Neil deGrasse Tyson, cannot convince them otherwise. Even the Ask an Astrobiologis guy at NASA cannot sway their belief.

The interesting thing is that this mass apocalyptic delusion is far from being a recent phenomena. It has been going on since ancient times. Paranoia about moral collapse, the need to control others, just wanting to stir things up out of boredom, who knows why this is such a pervasive belief. I enjoy the apocalypse in films, music, and literature, but I just cannot quite get behind it in real life. Sure, it is possible that civilization will crumble or there could be an energy/water crisis that causes civil unrest that takes us to or even beyond the brink. I have entertained the idea once or twice. I think that it is useful to learn how to do things the old fashioned way, as much for future disaster as for preserving history, but I am no doomsday prepper. I do not spend every waking hour and every cent preparing for a future that is only somewhat likely, or not at all.

Preparation is something that should be a back of your mind thing, not something you obsess over constantly. What kind of life is that? I live in the shadow of a giant rock that could explode and kill millions at any time. Mount Rainier is an active volcano. I grew up in Florida and lived in Louisiana for 6 years. I went through Hurricane Katrina. I was in Baton Rouge, but we were hit and faced a lot of aftermath from evacuees from NOLA. Disaster is always a possibility. We know that. We need to prepare, but more than that, we need to live. We need to enjoy what is around us in the present moment.

So, I made an end of the world playlist to enjoy today. I plan to enjoy the silliness and hope no one takes things too far. At the top of that list is R.E.M. I will enthusiastically sing along, badly and messing up the lyrics. It's the end of the world as we know it... and I do feel fine. I hope you do, too.

Another Rainy Night in Seattle

Anyone who lives in Seattle knows the rainy season is upon us. From Late spring to mid fall, the days are filled with beautiful weather. It doesn't usually get very warm and the skies are often blue. On these days, you can see all the beautiful mountains that surround the city: Mount Rainier, the Olympic range, and the Cascades. The rest of the year is usually drizzly and cloudy. Contrary to popular belief, we do not get a lot of rainfall. The annual rainfall is less than that of New York City.  We just have our rainfall spread out 8-9 months in a fine mist. It is wonderful on the skin and it makes the cold temperatures not feel quite as bone chilling. Sometimes, mainly in November, we have tons of rain, sideways rain, because that rain is usually accompanied by strong winds. The play of light from the rain drops on my windows is beautiful. I captured that in smaller drops here.

Last night, the drops were large, leaving large splashes of light, like Christmas light. So beautiful!

The view from my apartment window can range from ugly, to highly amusing, to downright shocking. At other times, like last night, is is breathtaking. I love Seattle!

Pretty is for everyone

This is my first completed art journal page. It isn't fancy or spectacular, but I kind of like it. It is done on the front of an old birthday card from my mother. It is one of those very girly adult daughter cards, with pink roses and a shabby chic background. I lightly covered with gesso, making sure I could still see the flowers. Then, I stenciled the dressmaker's dummy and butterfly on it. I colored them in using colored pencils, some watercolors, and cheap water soluble crayons. Then, I used Sharpies to color in the flowers and tray. I also used a Sharpie to add text. When I looked at the page, I couldn't think of anything besides how gender specific we have made certain images. This one screamed feminine. Why do we get all the pretty things? Shouldn't guys enjoy pretty things, too?

Stencils and Foil Beads

 My Versa Tool came in the mail yesterday! Today I played with it and created 2 stencils. It was very easy.  I traced an image on a sheet of transparency film using a fine tipped Sharpie. Once my Versa Tool (basically, a woodcutter with several interchangeable tips) heated up,  I cut lines into the plastic, being careful to skip occasionally so my design didn't fall apart. I decided to wing it rather than plan my stencils out. That probably wasn't the best idea, but it seemed to work anyway. The tip I used was a little on the the thin side, so I am going to retrace my lines using a thicker tip. I have seen many people advice people to use a sheet of tempered glass to cut a stencil out this way, but I used an old sheet of book board because it was what I had. It worked pretty well, although I am putting the tempered glass on my wish list. I like that it isn't completely crisp and straight. The lines are a little shaky, which gives it more of a homemade look.

Another thing to remember is to NEVER, NEVER EVER lose sight of the fact this is a raging hot tool. I was careful to keep it in its stand, but in a moment of foolishness, I grabbed it by the end to move. Argh! Not my finest moment. So far, this is the least unpleasant burn I have ever had on my fingertips. I made a German pancake a few years back and forgot that the pan had been in the over and the handle was blazing. That was agony. I will have a nasty scar on my thumb, but I will be okay. Let that be a lesson to you all. 

I also made some aluminum foil beads, idea courtesy of Jennibellie, of course. Her sheets of aluminum foil were painted on both sides with acrylic paint, leaving some of the foil unpainted. Then, she cut into strips and squished them tightly into balls, pierced a hole with a toothpick, then coated with a mixture of PVA glue and varnish.  She didn't like Diamond Glaze for this because of it was too thin for her liking. She is in the UK, and I don't know how similar to plain old white glue PVA glue is, but that is what I used. I mixed it with some Diamond Glaze to see how it would work. The beads are not completely dry yet, but they do not really look very glossy. I may do another coat, just with Diamond Glaze. 

 I feel I am living on the edge using Diamond Glaze because the last time I played with it, this happened.

Most of the paper beads I painstakingly cut and rolled and glazed became stuck to the toothpicks. Uncool. I keep meaning to come back with a tool and try to drill out the holes, but it doesn't sound very appealing to me. I am hoping my foil beads don't do the same.

Sadly, my experiment with the molding glitter glue into cabochons was a failure. The few that had glitter coating the bottom were somewhat salvaged by cutting the mold out. My cabochons will just include the mold. I am not sure if I will try this again. If I do, I will fill the molds with glitter and them use something harder. Maybe Diamond Glaze? Hot glue? I will also grease the molds before filling at all. I guess this is the reason we do experiments. They cannot all turn out like one hopes. What kind of experiments gone bad have you experienced? Drop me a line and we can have a laugh.

My First Bound Journal!!

I finally put together my assorted pieces of junk mail and packaging into a bound journal! Yay! The colors are crazy and I have a lot of work to do. This is just a base for future journaling material. It is only my first attempt, so please don't judge me harshly.

As an added bonus, I took some photos of other pages I have been furiously painting. These are mostly my waste paint papers. They look awesome! It is time to turn the one on my table around to I can cover the rest of he part that actually taped onto the surface. I have a bunch that is hanging over the edge, so this is going to end up one giant, wonderfully crazy piece of paper.

These are Jello boxes I cut up that I am using to throw waste paint on. Some of them look like ink blots. They will either end up as part of a mini album, as tags, or as postcards.

This is more reminiscent of my usual style. I do more stuff with clean lines than not, so most of what I have been doing is way outside my comfort zone.

A nice, subtle base for something.

I love this! Eyes have been a common theme in my work since I was a teenager. I realized I have 4 or 5 rubber stamps of eyes, all but one I carved myself!

I think this may have been the first thing I painted when I finished gessoing stuff.

I love this, too! This one and the one with the eyes are tied for my favorite. I used an arches stencil and did a lot of spraying with alcohol and dabbing. Then, I took a tiny rubber stamp I made of a cherry blossom and sprinkled them throughout the page.

This is crazy and dark, but I like how it turned out, too.

A bonus Zentangle! I painted the page above on the back side. That is why it is a little mottled. I had another one that I completely painted over. It isn't bad, but it isn't one of my favorites.

Please let me know what you think, so I know that actual people visit my site. And Happy Birthday to my Mom!! Until next time...

Art is helping me lose weight? I'll take that!

During the week I started art journaling, I lost more weight than I did in the last 2 months combined.  I have been at it! Art journaling...it is better than Jenny Craig! Maybe I will do a silly commercial when I fit into something sexy? Or not. I am not dieting or exercising, I just finally found something that occupies the obsessive part of my brain that was occupied by food for most of my life. I don't know if it will continue to do so when I get a job and I start getting back into a normal routine, but this is a jump start that I sorely need.

For much of my life, I have had disordered eating habits. due to insecurity about my weight, about my relationships, about my life, in general.  My wishy washy health hasn't been kind to me either. It is difficult to fix a healthy meal and clean up when in the middle of a migraine or when you feel like you have the flu, even when you do not. The frequency of my health problems have helped contribute to very unhealthy habits. I have had tons of therapy, so I am better able to manage a lot of my baggage and deal with the setbacks I will undoubtedly have when my health problems kick in, but I still have trouble sustaining any meaningful weight loss.  I kept reverting back to the binge eating and junk food.

I am conscious that this may not be something that continues to drive me in a way that distracts me from eating, but it is a start. If I can make it last at least a month, I have the chance at making this a habit. This seems to be the more pressing habit that will help me lose weight. In time, sooner rather than later, I will start exercising again. There is hope in my life again, a hope that is attached to real possibility.  When I hit 40 last year, I decided the theme of my 40s would be "Getting my shit together." It is actually happening, and I like it!

My Love for Cheap Crap

Daiso is the best place, ever! This little overstuffed Japanese dollar store with its agoraphobically narrow aisles and quirky, cheap stuff draws me in like a magnet. I can get several melamine sponges (Hello, Magic Eraser) for $1.50, fantastic kitchen storage/utility items made for tiny apartments, and a host of wonderful and sometimes insane things. Today, there was what looked like a back scratcher with a giant, weighted strawberry at the end of it. (?!) And they often have the funniest little self-inflatable fake boobs!

 I had to fill a prescription at the drug store across the street from the mall and there was no way I was going to miss out on the Daiso goodness. It was a horrible trip, barely being able to stop and inspect anything not at eye level, but I managed to thoroughly scour the place for things I could potentially use for my art journals, without a panic attack. Here's a sample of what I bought.

I took more photos, but I thought I would spare you the terrible quality. I promise, I will improve over time. I take lovely pictures, I swear. Exhibits 1 and 2:

Now, that I feel better about my photographic abilities, what did I get at Daiso, you ask?

• A couple of rubber sink mats in cool patterns that can be used as stencils.
• 2 packs of sparky gems meant for decorating a cell phone.
• 2 rolls double sided tape.
• Package of 3 bottles liquid adhesive.
• 2 packages lace trim.
• Adhesive backed paper lace.
• 2 chalk pens.
• Tubes of water colors, two to a set, in 5 colors
• Set of 3 curve rulers.
• Set of 3 round brushes.
• A set of clear stamps (several trims, a couple of name plate stamps, and an acrylic block included).
• Lace curtain that has interesting designs on it that will be nice to stencil.
• A set of 5 watercolor crayons.
• A couple of small spray bottles (I intend on making my own alcohol inks).
• 2 packages paper string (will be nice for use in binding).

 I also got a couple of beaded Christmas garlands and a couple of rolls of ribbon for very cheap at the drug store. Now, I have a ton of beads for embellishing the books and journals I plan to make. Whew! I have been on quite the little spending spree this week. I didn't mention the two tools I bought on eBay (Cop-a-Dile Big Bite, for punching holes in heavy stuff and a Vera Tool, so I can make my own stencils more easily) or the clothes I bought. Well, the clothes I actually need. I am not much of a clothes shopper, and most of the clothes in my size are better to buy or only available online, so I found an excellent sale at JC Penney's that also included 20% off my total and free shipping. I couldn't pass it up. My shirts are getting a little tattered and faded. I wear the same shirts to work, so it was necessary. I realized that all the shirts were in peacock feather colors, lol. What can I say, I love color! I did want to get a black shirt, but they were out in every style.  Maybe next time around.

So now it is time to give all that good stuff a home so I have room to play. So Merry Christmas to me, from me! When I get my Versa Tool, my spending spree will be complete. Now, it is time to tighten the belt and hope I get a job before my supplies run out.

Even junk can be pretty

I spent this evening cutting some junk mail and bits of stuff I had laying about. I decided to cut and some small circles out for little pulls on the pages, if I choose. The painting was a little of a hot mess. I realized I probably should have painted the cardstock before cutting the circles out. They were a little hard to work with, as they blew around when I tried to dry them with a hairdryer on its lowest setting, as far away as my arm could get from the wet paint and still be close enough to dry. Lesson learned. While that was difficult, the drop paper I was using looked awesome. I have been following Jennibellie's tip to brush/stamp/ blot any excess paint onto a large sheet of paper that you use as a drop cloth. I have tons of craft paper that had been used as padding in some packages I received, so I have been using those. So, having painted all I was going to be able to tonight, I decided I would go a little crazy with the paint that was left. Here are the results. Sorry the quality isn't better. It was hard to get good light without glare on the metallic paint. The compromise was that in a couple of photos you can tell there is a dark coppery color, on some it looks like a yellowish brown.

I already had a little bit of an underpainting from brushing off and stamping excess paint from something I did last week. So when I was finished playing and the paint had dried, I used a Sharpie to give a little definition and added character. Not bad for a bunch of paint that would have been washed down the drain, huh? Now, I have some unique paper to use when I start actually art journaling and making books.

A Hot Mess?

So, yesterday I mentioned my little cabochon making experiment. This is day three and they still aren't dry!

In fact, if you notice in the pictures, when as the glue is drying, it seems to be evaporating. There are big dips in each mold. So, yesterday, I added white glue to fill, and that is what you see. The white glue is also shrinking and evaporating away as it dries. In the process, I found out that many of the colors of the glitter are from a tint that was added to the glue, not from the glitter itself. The white glue in some of my molds is turning the color of the glitter. Hmm...

So, at this stage in the experiment, my genius has turned into a hot mess. If in several days, or however long it takes for the glue to completely dry, I will add some hot glue and see if my little cabochons can be salvaged.  Until then, I am crossing my fingers. Next time around, I would like to try brushing glitter into the molds first, then filling with either hot glue or Diamond Glaze. Plus, I will grease the molds to make them easier to unmold. If I find some glitter glue sticks, I might pick them up and give them a go.

Another new beginning

I have already made two other attempts to start blogs, but they didn't stick. I seem to be having trouble finding my voice. If you know me well, you would be surprised to hear that. I am quite outspoken around people I feel comfortable around. Yet, here I am, knowing I have a lot to say, but unable to follow through. This is the beginning of a change to all of that.

My passion in life is art. I have no one media, I like them all. Well, except for performance art. Something doesn't sit right with me most of the time.  So, after spending a year playing with digital photography, I find myself back in the land of messy art. I love photography, don't get me wrong. I am going to continue working on my skills in that area, as you will see in future posts, but there is something fantastically visceral about painting and drawing and printmaking that really gets my motor running. And I haven't touched a paintbrush in a few years. In fact, when I was reorganizing my supplies, they were covered in this cobwebs. Oh my!

Between an identity crisis when I finally graduated from college at the age of 30 with a degree in something that was interesting, but not my passion and increasing problems with my health and weight, it was all I could do to do the things we all have to do day in and day out. I still struggle. I do everything myself, out of necessity. That gets tough when migraines come calling or my sinuses are out of control. Throw in jobs at two places whose changes/internal struggles pushed me out, forcing me to go on unemployment for the first and second times in my life. My ego has been shattered. Mentally and physically surviving were my main objectives, my weight problem and my creativity were way down on my list of priorities.

So, cut to a couple of weeks ago. I didn't get a job at a place I really was super qualified for. Whether they thought I couldn't handle it because of my weight or my personality didn't necessarily fit in with the other staff in that department, I don't know. It was a blow. Although, I knew more positions were opening up in that system, my ego was crushed. I spent a day in bed, miserable and feeling sorry for myself. I started watching tv and cruising the internet. I was on YouTube and came across Jennibellie's channel about art journaling. One video let to another and another and another. Before I knew it, I had spent half a day watching her videos and others about art journaling and art, in general. It had been ages since I felt this kind of inspiration!

I started by gathering some of the general detritus of my life (recycling, stored paints and papers, etc.) and started out by doing on a mad gesso-ing spree. I don't have much room in my studio apartment to lay things out to dry, and I didn't have any area cleaned up and organized to paint, so I gessoed (?) on my tv tray and spread  each painted item out on every clear surface outside of my kitchen. Then, I did it again. Then, I decided color needed to enter into the equation and I started playing around with paint and stamps and stencils. I was starting to come alive! It felt wonderful. I realized that I was not eating nearly as much or as often as I had been. It is so rare  for me to find an activity that makes me forget about eating.  I never felt that way about art. I am starting to look at everything in a new light. I have empty blister packages from the multitudes of medication I take daily or just now and then. Wait a minute...I have glitter glue and these are round...I could make sparkly cabochons to decorate the art journals I am preparing to put together! I have found that the wet season in Seattle is not conducive to quick drying times, so that experiment has not born fruit as of yet. Meanwhile, here I am reorganizing my art and craft supplies. The table where my laptop lives will now share space with my art supplies.

 I am now excited when a sturdy piece of junk mail comes in or a box frees itself up when I east the last granola bar. Even toilet paper rolls! I always loved the idea of upcycling, but never knew what interesting things could be made out of trash that didn't take much effort at all. Thank you so much Jennibellie! I think you may have saved my life. I particularly like her channel because she is more about doing your own stuff with the materials you have at hand or can afford than the cookie cutter scrapbookers you will find on YouTube in droves. The ones whose stuff looks fine, but not necessarily artistic or original.

I don't find anything wrong with it. It is on par with color by numbers. Some people don't feel very creative, but want to make cute stuff. Sometimes, it is a little creepy and cult-like, especially with Tim Holtz everything and the Cricut. Tim Holtz has some awesome stuff, and the Cricut can do some amazing stuff, but when everything you do is dictated by having a particular die cut or stamp, it stops interesting me. That stuff gets pretty expensive. Plus, at least with the die cuts, they are way too perfect. I go the other way. I like the handmade look, and I am more into making my own, quirky, imperfect materials. They have more natural charm and you save buckets of cash by DIYing. I am not opposed to using other people's designs in my stuff, sometimes I may want a symmetrical, perfectly cut design.  I just want the work to be as much my own as possible. 

So, here I go. I hope you follow along.