An Armchair Art Solution

 

I'm not the only girl with physical problems, and certainly not the only who uses art and art journaling to cope with all that stems from it all. In fact, I created a small group on Facebook of creative women with FMS, as well as arthritis, chronic fatigue, & so on, where we support one-another's creativity (and give hugs on bad days). 

Living with all my various physical malidies means I can't always spend a day in the studio, no matter how much I want to. And yet, I don't let this keep me from journaling, writing, and experimenting. 

For days like today, when I'm so sore, I feel like a 5'7" purple bruise and have taken enough pain medication to, well, let's just say I'm a slightly foggy lump on my couch right now, I have an Art Box that I pull out for easy play in an armchair. It's slightly more involved than my purse/travel kit, but goes along the same lines as -- easy, low-mess, and colorful. 

The contents, of course, shift and change depending on what I'm into at the time, or want to play with. That stamp set has been in the box for awhile because I want to stamp on my pages, but never really get around to it. 

 

Cavalini & Co Alphabet set, Fabre-Castel Gel Sticks, & Caran d'Arch Neocolor IIs (they're stored in an Art Bin box, a collection I grew one at a time over five years).

My Lamy Safari fountain pen, pencil, eraser, Sharpie water-based poster paint in white, waterbrush, and set of neopastels (again, slowly growing collection one or two at a time).

My purse/travel case. For more on this, watch this video. I've added a bit of sequin waste I bought last week because HEARTS. I now have all sorts of circles, hearts, and stars! (I also have a fun new technique you can use with them that I'll be sharing later this week...)

And washi tape. It's oh-so-fun.

Lately, I've been asking myself why I hit publish on my entries, as I have several planned a week in advance (and photographed with my new camera) so I can keep up this updating-every-day-but-Sunday thing I've got going (and how is that going for YOU, dear readers?). So why this post? Because I discovered a month ago that my purpose is in alignment with my challenges, and in sharing them, and in giving tips and tricks to get around whatever may not be working for you right now. So if you're sick or disabled, or just a TV junkie, here's a system that seems to work for me. 

A Few New Journal Pages...

This page started much differently, but one night, when I was angry at a page, I pulled out my oft-neglected gesso and slathered it on. And then I turned to this page and decided to just gesso over bits to create the appearance of a white page with paint and spray ink in the middle. You can see how this page started here (it's the one with the clouds up top). 

And yes, this is totally Dina-inspired! I was suddenly struck by the idea of using one of her stamps to create a star shape, and then cut it out from the page with my craft knife. Another one was cut from my supply of painted and sprayed papers and glued down. I added my own bits to make it inspired-yet-mine, and pulled out my chipboard letters to finish it off. 

If this page looks familiar, well, it's because I used it as the inspiration for my contribution to one of the Scottsdale Public Arts' 100+ Community Journals. You can also see where this page started. Basically, I used it as a drop cloth-y thing when spraying some chipboard wings while working on Becca's floor, and left it alone for the future. I do this a lot -- add a bit of paint or plunk down a sprayed stencil so I never really have to face a blank page. Having a jumping-off point is so helpful! 

I painted some green around the blue spray ink, then painted in the wings, shading a bit with different colors. I've always been captivated by faces with blue or green shading to show shadow, so I've been working with bright colors to add depth. I drew with an eyedropper, then went inside to watch The Mentalist while playing with soft pastels on the page. I think that's all I can say, because I really wasn't paying total attention to what I was doing! I love when things just...happen!

I've pulled my white sharpie paint pen because of Jodi's paintings, and did a bunch of layered writing (I'll have more on this soon...as part of a new thing I'll be offering soon!). 

Okay, this one isn't finished, yet! 

It started because I wanted to put that photograph in my journal -- I just adore it, and wanted it to become part of my journal story! The problem came when I started thinking too much; I had the photo and scrap of paper and sat there trying to figure out where everything was supposed to go... 

So I just put the photo down! And then the paper! And some paint! And some trim I colored with Radient Rain. Sometimes, you've just got to go with it!

 

Hope this helped! I'm trying to record the thoughts behind my process so I can share them with you! 

Getting Past the Blocks of Uncertainty

 

an in-progress journal page; she's gone through a few layers, but I'm still a bit uncertain as to where she's going!

Sometimes, we have no idea what we’re doing in our journals.
Ideas come to mind, and we rush to execute them, afraid that, if they’re left uncaught for too long, they will fade away, taken on the wind like a clearing mist. So we put them down, sit back, and wonder what the hell we were thinking. Why that color? Why is that image there? How is this going to work out?

There are a few things you can do when this happens:

1. Push through it.

This requires bravery and a silent critic. Just keep putting paint and paper and drawings down, collage a bit more, add another layer of paint, and work faster to keep yourself from thinking too much. I remember reading an interview with Teesha Moore where she said something like keep going until you hit some resistance, and push through it -- that’s where the best stuff comes from. Whenever a page seems to not be working, pushing through it and adding bits can help unlock magic you’d never have found if you simply let the page win.

2. Shift to another page.

Working on more than one page at once can help you keep the energy and art mojo flowing when the page you’re confused by throws a brick wall in your way. Switch to something else -- grab a collage bit from your stash, or a paint color you adore, and put it down on another journal page. Dina often has three journals going at once; when she’s in the flow, she’s working fast and switching between them so there’s no static moments while something is drying.
 
3. Take a break.

Sometimes, this is what you have to do. When you slam into that blockage, that moment of what is going on here? it may just be time for you to push your journal away, stand up, and move somewhere else. Go for a walk, have a conversation with someone near you, listen to music. Don’t, whatever you do, look online for inspiration. There are two reasons I warn you against this: first, because you may find something you love and feel you’ve no business even journaling anymore because oh, who am I to try when someone else can do something that amazing? and second, because the internet can really suck up your time, and before you know it, an hour has passed, the paint on your palette’s dried out, and it’s time to make dinner. Try walking away for maybe twenty minutes, then come back and try again.
 
You may want to give up. Shut your journal and ignore it for a few days. Wonder if you’re any good at all. Here’s what I have to say:

You are amazing, wonderful, and unique, and have every right to keep going, keep playing, keep creating. Being an artist isn’t about paintings in a gallery or being recognized for talent. It is a frame of mind, an outlook, and a willingness to run right up to the blocks and tear the thing down, brick by brick, because you want to know what’s on the other side.

 

I've also updated the Studio View gallery with several shots around my outdoor art space.

the secrets of strangers (whispered in our ears)

 

We found a journal today.

It was sitting there on the table, alone. It belonged to no one -- there were no bags or papers or a pen or laptop sitting near it, the signs of someone claiming a temporary space. The journal simply sat there, a mystery wrapped in paper, waiting for someone to come along and notice it.

And I don’t think many did, as it sat on that table as the coolness of early morning turned into the hours of late breakfasts and confusion between greetings; a good morning or good afternoon that has no clear-cut line except the matched hands on an analog clock. There was a bit of hesitancy in the grabbing, in the touching, but as soon as the cover was opened, you couldn’t help but hear those secrets of strangers whispering in your ears. 
 


One spoke of a love gained and lost, of a year of trials that helped her to grow. She used markers in different colors and gave the paper her soul to borrow, if only for a little while. I felt like a voyeur, someone looking over her shoulder, and hated that there as no way for me to hug her.

Or the boy who wrote of ties bought for him by his mother, a square cut from each and stapled into the journal.

The one who travels the same route every day.

Or the creative layering of a drawing down to the abstract piece at the end.

I felt like I’d stumbled across something magical. I shared my story, my art, and handed it off to someone else to add to. And so on, and so on, until we’re all strangers who are not strangers if only between the covers of a sketchbook, mostly ignored, yet seen by those who most needed it.

 

{what I've learned about journaling with a friend}

 

It's taken me a week to post these photos, but better late than never! 

There's something magical about journaling with someone else. There are a few things you need to be comfortable with if you're itching to do this. Here's my little list:

1. Be comfortable with creative silence. (What happens when we get into the flow? We don't talk, we focus. You may spend hours sitting at the same person and speak three words. You need to be comfortable with this, with being social without speaking. I love that I can be around my art friends and get into what I'm working on without worrying about making them uncomfortable, and vise versa.)

2. Be excited about trying new things. (Becca pulled out a baggie of feathers, and I now have a pink one taped in my journal. I love seeing what she's up to, and we share supplies, paint, papers, bits we've made, etc. In fact, we usually are excited about something and bring enough to share with each other!)

3. Be comfortable with your own work. (I never feel pressured to make something awesome. I just have fun, and bounce around. Sometimes, I'm painting the entire time, sometimes I'm simply sketching.)

4. Know what you love. (It's easier to go journaling with someone when you know what you love and can condense it into a container easy to carry around. You really learn what you "need" in order to journal and what you can use when you're at home.)

Becca and I journal in public every week, in a popular cafe. We've had people stop and chat with us, ask us about our art, page through our journals. The employees know us because we're the ones that spread out and clutter the table with paint and markers and bits and papers. We're always respectful of the space we're in, and endeavor to leave it as we found it. There's something about being out in public, in watching people come and go, in mugs of tea and the best damn pastries I've ever found. I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

(I am so in love with Thickers, particularly painting them a color to match the page I'm working on. Thankfully, the font I like, in white, is only $2 at Big Lots. I really should grab myself a new package before tomorrow morning's journal time...)

{art journal + inspiration book = ?}

 

Not that I’m happy about a certain bookstore chain biting the dust (in fact, I had a few months left of my Plus membership), but it did help to spur on this new wave of journaling juju I’m working through.

You see, Becca and I visited the nearest Borders still open, which was near her place, but 40 minutes from mine (I’ve become a huge fan of used bookstores in this Borders-less era, which works since I live across the street from one of the best-known used/new indie bookshops in the state) and wandered the very crowded store for whatever we could find. Being as I work for myself (scraping by as I continue to morph and change and figure out my place in this digital artistic landscape) and Becca is underemployed in child-care, there wasn’t much we could afford — Amazon has lower prices, anyway — but we could afford the magazines.

I haven’t really been into womens’ magazines past Bust and Bitch — two amazing publications, the later of which is a non-profit media machine funded by women all over the country — only buying, and this is fun, Japanese fashion magazines for years as I love Harajuku fashion, as it is. But my darling Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine was on the cover of Nylon, and at 40% off, I simply had to have it.

Let’s backtrack a bit. This isn’t a story that can be told linearly, rather, my mind doesn’t think in a straight line — what is that quote? Time exists so things don’t happen all at once?

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." - Albert Einstein

There we go.

A month ago, I went to Art Unraveled to meet up with Dina and finally get to meet Traci in-person, and got the chance to page through the Journal Fodder Junkies journals while the other artists were speaking.

(Rice asked questions of the artists gathered, about inspiration, which you can see here. Extra credit if you can spot me for a few seconds!)


I think I’d already been thinking about how my journals had gradually moved away from where I started; a few years ago, I decided to stop using magazine images in my journals, and even did a radical experiment of creating an entire journal without any outside imagery. It wasn’t that I don’t like journals with magazine bits in them, just that I was in a different place — I, personally, didn’t like the aesthetic in my own work.

From an entry back in 2009:

So, today, I sat in the studio, turned up my iPod, and started painting. It looked great. And then, I kept going, and going, and BAM -- I could feel the teenager inside me screaming and crying, telling me to destroy it. "No, I can't do that," Older Me told her, "It is valuable in it's imperfections. It shows us what we don't like." "But we know what we DO like," she shouted back. "Why can't we just go back to that? To the way it was?" "Because how will we grow?" I said. "I was getting bored with acrylics and paintbrushes and drawings." "Then pull out the magazines," Teenage Kira advised. "You thought you were being all smart, deciding to not use them, but you really do like them sometimes." So I did. And made some awesome pages.

Oh, how clever I thought I’d been. But, in looking through those journals, with all those scraps of paper from the places they’d been, found walking around the block (Dave had a quote about this, about walking around your block and picking up the bits you find before getting started in the studio), I recognized a yearning that beforehand didn’t have a name, that I was missing that bit of journaling that more resembled a book of inspiration than a painting on each page. I knew, then, that I’d be taking a new turn by going back in the past — think of it this way; I was using something I learned in school I never thought I’d ever use. We’ve all had moments like this, that surprise at using knowledge we thought useless, that we’d never visit again.

Except now I’m a new me, which means it isn’t the same person looking at the prospect of using magazine images in her journal, so it’s turned into something new. Instead of being a journal full of only paint and artist’s pages, it is now a place where anything I find inspiring is taped or glued down right beside experiments with stencils or even the stencils themselves!

And I like this hybrid return to my roots. It coincides with some soul work I’m doing with the blog, and my identity on the internet as part of Gwen Bell’s Align Your Website. I told you last week that I’d be making changes in real-time, and you’ll soon be seeing the bare-bones as I work to figure out the content and framework for a new digital sanctuary.

As part of this, I’ll be stepping back from social media (such as Twitter & Facebook), so if you’d like to visit or keep in contact, check in here or the weekly newsletter. I’ll be posting daily, either long or short bits, and sending out the newsletter. And as True to You 2’s last lesson will be posted on Monday, I’ll be back to offering videos. I don’t know how long I’ll be taking a break from social media, but figure I’ll know the end when it happens.