Finding Magic, New Supply Love, & More!

I have so much magic I want to write about, but it shall have to wait. 

As many of you know, I suffered a concussion early Friday morning when the light fixture in the ceiling of my Closet Studio decided to attack my head. I’m fine; I went to the ER on Monday, finally (as having no insurance + CT scan = scary!), and was told I’m suffering a post-concussion syndrome, which mimics the symptoms of the original injury, except for a longer, undetermined period of time. So posts are going to be a little far apart, as being on the computer or sitting in the studio is a bit difficult at the moment. 

(I am still launching the Ning on Monday, though!)

A mosaic of my students, their work, and my samples...

Class on Saturday was amazing. In every way. My students were magnificent and so patient with me as I was a bit scattered! We had a great, fun time, and they kept saying they were having a wonderful time! Oh, it warmed my heart. Being able to go around and see the magic they were creating and help them fix those bits they didn’t like while pointing out the amazing things they’d created on their own? 

I found my magic. 

I know what I’m supposed to do. I have the confidence to go for it. There are plans in the works, but for now, I shall bask in the glow of Saturday’s class. 

And as I was browsing the shop after class, I spied the Prismacolor colored pencils and was thinking, “So many people like them; I should give them a try, hmmm?” So I walked up to the woman plucking pencils from the shelves and asked, “Do you like these?” 

She turned and said, “Oh, I know you, I read your blog!” 

It turns out, Kim had emailed me before my newfound better reply practices and we got to chatting. Then, another woman came down the aisle, Lynn, who I’d met at my first demo and had traveled far to come see me. Add an amazing class plus two wonderfully creative ladies who recognized me from my writings and videos here and reached out and bam! 

I really found my magic.

That, and I’m in love with my Prismacolor colored pencils! And! A month ago, a friend of mine found a set of Art Stix at a garage sale for $3 and asked me if I’d use them. Not knowing what they were but not being one to turn down a lucky find, I said I would, and she sent ‘em to me. Little did I know, the Art Stix are the same thing as the pretty colored pencils, except without the wood! 

Talk about a lucky find! It’s a 48 color set! 

Add to all of that Jane Davenport’s posts for Life Book this week about some fun techniques with these beauties and I am one happy, happy girl! 

I am so excited for all the amazing things I have in mind for the launch of the Ning, and for the future of the blog, and for my art and journaling. I wish you could all come hang out with me, because I’d be talking a mile a minute about everything I’m discovering!

By the way, I started using a pad of Strathmore Mixed-Media 300 series paper for my journal, and I love it! I already was in love with the 400 series — I have a pad in every size, even the 18”x24” pad, and use it in all my demos — and was hoping the 300 series would make a good journal. It does! I’ll be doing a video review of this paper versus Canson’s Mixed-Media paper very soon! 

Also, tomorrow is the last day you can sign up for Journaling Deep in its current incarnation. It’ll be changing as soon as the Ning launches, as I’m upping my game!

If you have a few minutes, why don't you fill out my questionnaire so I can get to know you better?

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. 

Getting Ready to Dazzle with Magic

I’ve sat down to write a blog post a few times this week. 

And haven’t posted any of them. 

Ever since my experiment in staying off the internet for a week, I’ve found myself less and less drawn to the computer and the internet. Instead, I paint, draw, experiment, and create. There are notes for projects scattered all over the place, plans being drawn up, ideas being nurtured before being shared with the world. 

So many of you wrote, on the last post, that you, too, get sucked into the internet. In chatting with students at my live events, I’ve heard that many go to blogs to be inspired, and spend so much time doing so, you’re not doing any art of your own. I challenge you to do a day without the internet. I know when you’re creating, and you get stuck, you jump online to find something inspiring to get you over that hill of Resistance. I encourage you not to. Instead, get a snack, talk with a friend, take a walk, and then come back to your piece. Get over that hill yourself, with your own ideas, style, and approach. That, in a nutshell, is innovation.

 

Yesterday, as I drove home after a hectic, frustrating, hour-long-omg! visit to the DMV, an idea popped into my head. An idea so strong and so vivid, I frantically searched for my phone and called someone I know is supportive, amazing, and would give it to me straight. 

So as I drove home, I spilled the idea out to Roben-Marie, gesturing with my free hand when I could (stoplights only, please!), smiling so wide, I thought my face may split. And at the end, I said:

“I just had to get it out. I had to share it with someone else. Have you ever had an idea hit you so strongly like that?” 

And she has. Just look at all the plates she has in the air (I cannot recommend her shop and classes enough, but I’m biased! We met when I interviewed her for my still-on-hiatus ‘zine, an interview I had to do because I love her art so much!). 

She was everything I needed. A sounding board. A friendly ear. And she was just as excited as I was, by the end of the call (in fact, I have a text from her this morning asking how things are going!). 

We all need friends like this in our lives. A friend we can call out of the blue who will listen to our ideas, help us narrow them down, and give the pros and cons, if need be. I’m sure if my idea had been one that wouldn’t have worked out, Roben would have told me, then helped me reshape it into something that would. Find a friend like this — a sister, a mother, a childhood pal — and let them hear your ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem. Sometimes, crazier really is better!

 

But I’m moving slow. This isn’t out of fear. In Reverb, by Gwen Bell says:

“If there was ever a time to slow down and stay focused on just one element of the business at a time, this is it. Practice mindfulness, simply staying present in the moment. Trust that all is unfolding as it should.”

(She is another amazing woman I wholeheartedly recommend. You can sign up for her daily newsletter here. It’s worth taking the time to sign up and read, for a few minutes, every day.)

 

That’s what I’m doing. A few things a day. Writing the ideas that come down on notecards or in my binder. Spending time refining my art and learning new things (you have no idea how much taking a simple drawing class has changed my approach to art and improved my flow. If you can take one at a local community college, do it.) . 

 

A huge part of it is Born Brave. I’m hoping to start the new YouTube channel this week, or the beginning of next week. Speaking to artists and journalers with chronic illnesses is so important to me, I’m betting half the bank on this new project.  

The other half is being bet on a Ning. I announced this yesterday via Facebook, but have learned that you may not see all of my posts over there unless you visit my page (I’m learning new things about social media and marketing every day!). There is so much I want to create over there, just for you, that I’m going all in. 

My chips are on the table. I have enough meds for two months. My bills are paid. And while it’s scary in the OMG-my-stomach-is-in-knots-and-my-skin-is-tingling way, I’m still going for it. 

I’m working behind the curtains like the Wizard of Oz, getting ready to dazzle you with magic.

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? 

Half the battle is showing up

Inspired by my friend Wendy, I'll be trying to do a journal page a day. Or work on one everyday. Or maybe strive for 4 a week. Why, you ask?

Well, I'm having a Spoonie Day. It's characterized by a distinct lack of cohesion between my body and mind; the former is exhausted or in pain or just being plain ol' stubborn and the latter is raging against a shell that doesn't support what it wants to do. There are so many things I want to do, so many ideas swirling up there, and yet, today, I struggled to even stay awake. 

And on days like this, no matter how much I rally against it, the fact of the matter is, I have to accept it, rest, and show up tomorrow. 

What does this have to do with attempting to finish a journal page every day? 

After two naps, I was lying on my couch watching a movie, journal at my side, closed. A friend lucked upon a beautiful set of Prismacolor Art Stix at a garage sale and sent them to me -- a box of beautiful, smooth colors waiting to be used -- and I had them near me, too. And as I sat there, I remembered I'd posted on my Facebook page last night about doing a page a day, and groaned as I realized that pretty much meant I had to do one today because you can't give up on the first day out of the gate. 

So I did the page above. Mostly done those art stix, with black Stabilo pencil and a white-out pen. I had this morning's drawing class lesson still in my head, and decided to doodle and play with shading. These stix are gorgeous, and I think I'll be playing with them some more tomorrow!

on letting things simmer before inspiration strikes again

I seem to work in a cycle. 

I’ll run on full steam ahead for awhile. Full of new ideas, playing in my journal every day, working on paintings. 

My head is full of grand ideas and I get so much accomplished. 

And then I go into hibernation. 

I go a week without touching my journal. My days are spent messing around online. I’ll lose all motivation to do art. I’ll become a sloth, laying around on the couch (in various positions, sometimes hanging upside down). 

During that time, I’ll begin to doubt myself, wondering what’s gone wrong. Where has my love of art gone? Why can’t I manage to get up and make anything? Where have all the ideas gone?

And just before I begin to lose hope, something magical happens. 

I start creating again. 

The ideas begin to flow again. My days are spent dancing around. I work on several pages at once. I jump around from journal to painting to sewing. I churn out a workshop, maybe even two. I make videos and bounce around and feel fantastic. 

I’ve learned that the downtime in-between is when things are percolating. A lot is happening under the surface while I watch Hoarders on Netflix and eat ice cream and junk food, and I just need to trust the process and be ready when it’s all ready to come out and join the world. 

New (smartphone) Photography Discoveries & More!

I was going to post the Q&A video today and this post tomorrow, but I’m a bit tired and wanting to curl up with my Smash book, so the Q&A is going up tomorrow and this tonight. Which means things may be confusing for one line or two in the vid, but if that’s the only odd thing, we’ll all be lucky. When I’m not bouncy excited, I’m weird-humor even-keel, and living a life on camera, well…welcome to me!

Ever since Becca got an iPhone, I’ve been a green-eyed monster, especially when she whips the thing out to show me her most-recent Instagram pics. In fact, while we were hanging out last night, we spent half the time with our noses in our phones, playing around with pictures! It’s quite addicting, and even though I have Mad Skills on teh Photoshop, I love the different filters and textures available in all these camera apps. And before you ask, no, I don’t have an iPhone (to my eternal sadness. Actually, the phone I have is marvelous, especially since I bought it for $200 on eBay. What I don’t like is that I have a 4G phone, pay for 4G service, yet live in a city without 4G service. Oh, Sprint. You piss me off for the tune of $120 a year…). 

All of these photos were taken with Vignette, which is very, very worth the cost for the paid version. I love it to pieces! 

I processed them in either Magic Hour — another paid program that I just purchased this morning and adore — or GO Photo, which is free and goes with GO Launcher, which is a ton of fun, if you have the time/inclination to personalize your Android. 

But that’s it. Lots of playing around and clicking and adjusting. The knowledge I have from Photoshop actually helped make things easier (for example, Magic Hour allows you to adjust the Curves, which I only know how to do because of playing in Photoshop since I was 13), but it’s so user-friendly, you can get started with no experience at all!

But let’s not make this whole post techny! I carved those stamps from craft foam with my new wood burning tool (thank you, 50% off Michael’s coupon!) and it really is like cutting through butter! I messed up on one, but then got the hang of it really fast and it was like drawing, except then I could make block prints with ‘em! The foam was $1 and I still have over half a sheet left, and can’t wait to make more. Oh, why was I intimidated in the first place?

Except for the fumes. OH, the fumes. Really. I was sitting in front of a window under a fan at high speed and have learned that I need to dig a mask out of my garage or else I’ll get sinus headaches very easily. Or I could go outside and work on ‘em. Either one — trust me, darlings, the warnings are in the books for reasons. And this is one of them. Even when I was working with wood, I needed to take a step back for a bit and relax. Then again, I have a tendency to lean over my work when I get into the details (which isn’t good when your back dislikes you most days!), but still. Better safe than sorry!

We also wrote on tissue paper with Copics to layer, but didn’t know that the markers would leak through the tissue and stain the table, so that’s a reason to have a black craft table (I honestly had no idea as I bought my desk in black for this very reason). 

And I found out that GAC 100 is so super awesome, I’ve got to play with it some more to see what else it can do.

Most of these are close-up shots of backgrounds I have yet to work over. I have a few awesome pages in the works -- why can't I post everything all at once by visiting you all and gushing over art?