Things here in Kira!Land have come to a head; stressful situations drive me from the house, which means less time on the computer to update or in the studio to paint (my journal, however, loves being sketched in). So please accept my apologies for not staying on schedule or filming any vids lately. Hopefully, after next week, things will get back on track.
For this week, allow me to give you a peek into Journal #10 (and yes, I am STILL pulling numbers from thin air). This, if you remember, is the spiral one I wrote about....last week?
Shall we venture inside?
When I started, I just wanted to collage a whole bunch of papers together, then work on top of them. I haven't been painting as much lately, which means less drawing. The journals I seem drawn to are those that aren't “planned,” that is, a collage of images in the back, then added titles and writing. I want mess – rather, I'm in a mess and feel the need to throw it onto the page.
Through all of the papers, you can barely see the paint. I remembered doing something like this on a previous journal page, a fluke, if you look at my style, and wanted to do that again. Just escape into cutting and gluing and making a general mess of the page.
Now that I think about it, that seems to be my theory for life. I write quite a bit, and instead of worrying about creating something wonderful or poetic, I am to make a complete mess (my journal name over on LiveJournal, the blog I've had for about 8 years, is A Beautiful Disaster). Just chuck whatever you can at it. AIM to create the worst mess you possibly can. Let go of rules. Just do it.
There are two reasons why this works:
- You get things down onto the page.
- It usually turns out a lot better than you originally thought it would.
See the page above. I just continued to layer papers and paint until I threw some white over it to write on, and voila! I actually really love the page. The layers and method capture how I was feeling – insecure, unsure, uncomfortable (new journals tend to do that to me) – more than the writing. That is, I can read the writing, but FEEL the page under my hands.
But then I wandered to Roben-Marie's blog and saw all the fun she was having with stencils and spray paint, and remembered how much fun I had with spray paint. Mine have gone missing (aka buried in the garage under packed boxes), so I bought a few new colors, pulled out my old stencils, and had a bit of fun....
...and realized how POORLY I take care of my stencils.
Most of them are die-cut scrapbooking papers, and, after being stuck together and pulled apart so many times, are in pieces. Literally. I had a piece I was using on the pages. While the decay is beautiful, I need some new ones that aren't folded/ripped/covered in paint.
But then I did something new: I painted over the stencils with gesso (after letting them dry in a well-ventilated area overnight). Err, rather, tried to in the studio after opening the window and turning the fan on high; fume headaches are NOT fun.
(Learn from my mistakes!)
This is what came out:
Before you say anything: all things are fine. I embellished a bit because I was emotional. This may give you a bit of insight as to what's happening here.
For an example of this new hybrid of styles, here's a page I haven't journaled on yet:
I'm in love.
Don't you just love when that happens?