Girl (with pages) In Progress

 

I was recently asked, and not for the first time, if I add the date to my journal pages. 

I do, once and awhile, but that’s usually only to help me figure out what order the journals go in when I’m going through them to track my progress or share them with friends and students. 

But it isn’t unusual to read a page about New Year’s before one talking about mid-December. My pages don’t go in linear order, one day, then the next. I don’t even work in order. 

Instead, I bounce around. Add a glaze on one page, a photo on another. Do scribbles with fabric paint, then go backwards and glue in collage elements. It’s rare that I sit down and start with a blank page, finishing the entire thing in one sitting. 

 

And I have way more fun this way!

Working randomly, adding little bits here and there, adds to the chaos of a messy page. Layers added over time — longer than an hour or two — means that things aren’t polished. Sometimes, things can feel too smooth around the edges, planning showing through. I love when a page just comes together, the sum of chaos its own beauty. 

What this means is that there are currently four or five pages in-progress in my journal. 

When I sit down to play, I page through, looking at the ones still unfinished, and work on whatever jumps out at me. If I feel like drawing with ink, I’ll turn to a page with a background free of too many added elements so the drawings stick out. If I want to color with shiny pens, I find one that’s nearly finished and just needs a few doodles. The work feels less forced and more organic this way. 

I used to do one a page at a time, in order, start to finish. There’s nothing wrong with that, and yes, at times, I’m inspired to sit and start with a blank piece of paper. But I’m pretty happy with my bouncing, non-linear workflow. 

 

Lately, I’ve added little watercolor pieces to the mix. When you’re low on energy or hurting, a waterbrush and little palette of paint can bring great joy, even if you’re just doodling (one of my favorite activities!). It’s a new artform I’m in love with, surprised with the beauty I’ve been able to create. And to think I never thought I could do watercolors! 

So here are a few of my pages in progress — do you have any? And when was the last time you showed them any love? 

 

Journal Page Mathematics

I wanted to show you how the journal page from yesterday’s post (which, if you haven’t read it yet, go give it a gander!) came to be. 

My pages evolve organically, with layers added in bits and pieces here and there until, finally, they come together. They’re not in order as you turn the page; rather, they are scattered and added to and get messy and come to be as they’re supposed to. 

I may not have a particular thought in mind until the final push — a collection of layers, created from the cast-offs of other pages and projects being worked on, will, suddenly, call to me the same way you see a face in the grain of a wooden door, a dog in a puffy white cloud, or Mary in the center of a tomato. In the slant of sunlight or the shadows of a lamp, it all magically becomes clear in a way I’m sure the Divine always saw, but I needed time to see. 

Which is a very positive and together-sounding way to explain my process. My students have been asking me why I make the decisions I do while doing art, and I had to come up with something.

Allow me to walk you through the evolution of a journal page. 

 

 

I used this page to test a doodle foam stamp I made for Journaling Deep. It worked alright (this is before I discovered GAC 100 and its magic properties for making brayered stamps work better).

 

Not pictured: I decided to see if my soft pastels would work the same way my charcoal does, ie. using erasers as drawing tools (I have several erasers, now, and blending stumps). It didn’t. So I covered the page with bright, dreamy colors and then let it get all funky because my fixiatif was in my car. 

 

I then decided I couldn’t really do anything with a page covered by pastels and painted over them with gesso. This is when I started to get an idea of what I wanted to write/journal about — I’d been listening to Sara Bareilles in the car and there was a lyric I wanted to do a page around. This is about the same time my Leg Pain became my Leg and Arm Pain and I stopped being able to sleep (still unresolved). 

I knew I wanted a representation of myself, and didn’t want it to be an illustration, per se, but a drawing with a nose. So I hopped over to Tam’s Fabulous Faces course and watched the first video — it is an amazing class, by the way! I wholeheartedly recommend it. What’s even more amazing is even though I followed along, my work looks different than what she drew. That’s the mark of a great teacher! 

 

I painted the face with acrylics and watercolor crayons, leaving the rest of it white. 

 

I remembered a page I’d done recently that transformed a bleh page into one I loved, so I borrowed the ink writing and Cobalt Teal, as well as the lines of dots I’d done on there. 

This is am important step to cultivating your own mark — instead of sitting down to find inspiration online or in a magazine, look back through your journal for bits and pieces you can transplant and refine on a later page (I’ll be offering a short course on pushing through your creative roadblocks next week if you want to learn more about this whole process!). 

 

By the time the page was finished, the message had changed from one of anger to one of positivity and hope. And that, my darlings, is the transformative power of visual journaling. 

 

 

If you’re not on my mailing list, I’d suggest hopping on; as I go through this transition into creating a more aligned business and life, I’ll be posting to the mailing list more often and offering beta-test opportunities for my new offerings. 

Watercolor Inspired

When I clicked play on a video posted on Traci Bautista’s blog last week, I had no idea what I was in for. 

The video chronicled the combined efforts of Traci and an artist I’d never heard of, Stephanie Corfee. I watched as Stephanie doodled in watercolors with confidence, creating a bright, colorful piece of art that Traci then incorporated into a doodle of her own. 

I was hooked. 

 

So it’s no surprise that, after finding Stephanie’s book on Amazon, I pulled out a pad of mixed-media paper and my small collection of watercolors and started to doodle. 

I didn’t think I’d make anything nearly as stunning as the work that inspired me. I’m not all that experienced in using watercolors, having abandoned them soon after I started art journaling for acrylics, but I wanted to give this a try. 

It happened by accident, really. An afterthought when I collected supplies to work in my Smash book on the couch. I soon found myself consumed by the doodles, playing with color and shape and line in a way I’ve never done before. I’ve come a long way with my confidence with a brush, and just, well, had a ball. 

 

I think these have become my new zentangles! With a waterbrush, it’s just as easy for me to create these as my little drawings in a sketchbook. I plan on scanning them in and creating cool prints with them of some kind. Oh, I’m in love! 

Count these as my journal pages for Monday and Tuesday, okay?