{the experiments journal #3: the finished big canvas & fabric edging for a journal page!}

I love that I'm using these videos as a visual documentation of many of my experiments. I get an idea, thinking it out, and then film me trying it out. These are not perfect, polished bits -- they're the real deal, the raw creativity that happens almost every day. 

*Disclaimer: My actual sewing for journals, etc, is much, much neater! 

I added the blue fabric patch after the video was over. Here's a few lovely glamor shots. 

I also sipped a glass of wine while admiring my finished painting! It's the largest I've ever done, and am already thinking about my next one!

The colors are much richer/diverse than in the photo. I'm still working out how PS5 works on a PC (oh, how I miss my Mac!). 

And I love this detail shot, how the writing is coming through the layers! Oh, I just love what I've managed to create! This, too, is available. 

Tomorrow is a full day full of friendship, as is Thursday! I'm a lucky woman to be meeting with such fun and creative ladies over the next 2 weeks!

{being transformed}

Last week, I officially became an Arizonian!

And I managed to take a GREAT license picture.

I also ventured to the Tempe Public Library, an impressively large, newly-renovated library where the library cards are not only designed by local artists, but you can choose which design you like most for your card.

Score!

While searching for books and running around the stacks as I worked down my list, I found the most amazing book: When Walls Become Doorways: Creativity and the Transforming Illness by Dr. Tobi Zausner. The book contains little profiles on artists and how they create art despite disability or illness and HOW they beat all odds to create when faced with difficulty. As I began to read, I became more and more enthralled with the idea that I, too, could create despite my limitations.

For years, I have pushed myself to sit at a desk and work, or stand and paint against a wall. And while I love creating, and have painted and drawn and collaged in such ways, I felt ucky after, or had to leave while in the flow due to pain. How, then, could I create without causing myself unnecessary pain?

I already wrote while sitting in my comfortable recliner, so why couldn’t I paint?

So I grabbed the drawer tower thingy I got at Walmart and plunked it down next to my chair in the living room. Pulled out the paints and stacked them on top, treating it like a table. Now, I’d have all my supplies close at hand and could remain comfortable while painting!

With my paint near the TV, I could paint while watching my favorite Primetime shows (I’m currently listening to Castle!)! And, amazing thing - I was more productive!

According to Zausner, people with ADD can usually find it easier to focus when music, media, or the spoken word is played in the background - and I agree, though I’ve never officially been diagnosed with ADD. By letting something play in the background, I don’t get “bored.” Usually, when reading or writing or doing art, I’ll be in the flow and then my brain will grab onto something else - I’ll check Twitter, my email, or just daydream - before I go back to what I’m working on. With music playing or the TV on, I can be much more productive and focused.

Which shouldn’t be a huge surprise, seeing as I’ve done most of my writing while watching my shows at night. But it was a breakthrough to me. 

And what else could I do to promote self-care? How do you take those limitations or disabilities and turn them into a fresh, unique piece of artwork? When I move to make art, now, I allow myself to be me - completely and totally me, with whatever supplies I have and how I’m feeling - and make my art.

These new journals I’m making are a singular piece of art through smaller parts. I allow mistakes and new ideas and non-standard sizes. Instead of seeing my shaking hands and lack of proper foot on the machine as a negative, I’m using it as a positive to make art instead of simply a product. I am more joyful in creating, more open.

My style is now influenced by all the new scenery around me, the plants foreign to me. Loops and solid colors and less collage. I will work through it, add more and more of myself to it, but I’ve dived in, laughed, and allowed change. It’s an amazing feeling.

So now I’m making smaller 6”x6” pieces on paper that are available. I’m putting myself out there. If you’re interested, leave a comment. Pay what you’d like. And I’ll make more feathers and flowers and put them out there, too.

Even if I’m petrified to come straight out and say to shop owners, “Your store is amazing and I’d love to teach here!”

{the experiments journal #2: liquitex ink!, fun patterns, playing with color}

Just a little more fun from the sunny desert! I go over Liquitex Ink!, paintings, and fun with color! 

I'll be putting paintings up next week. This week is for color study and play. Sometimes, your play and time isn't all about the finished product. I'm loving playing with color and thinking differently, and can't wait to try some new ideas out in my journal! This one's certainly getting filled with fun, and fast! 

As soon as my sewing machine arrives, I'll be putting up custom journals - both sewn and ring-bound - screenprinted fabrics, and little paintings. I cannot WAIT to get these ideas out of my head and into the real world!

{points of two week #39: the marvelous colors of fall!}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

Hiya! Welcome back to Points of Two! We took a little break while I moved cross-country, but now we’re back and ready with new pages for you this week!

Our prompt was fall colors.

I’ve never been a huge fan of fall. In fact, I always grumbled when it came around because that meant summer was over and winter - a freezing, white, Chicago winter - was on the horizon. I really hate digging my car out and having to wear four layers and a hat and gloves and a scarf and…

But now I live in Arizona, where I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing ANY snow, unless I drive up north.

Our route out here took us through Missouri, and I can’t imagine a more beautiful, temperate time to drive through the Ozarks. The trees were beautiful shades of gold, red, and fading green. The air cool but not cold. Out every window there was a rainbow of color, a blanket of leaves tossed over the rolling hills.

Color is what I observed most while driving, and I can see my color palette shifting, changing just as my surroundings have.



After almost a month of delayed art, getting back into art journaling feels weird. Like when you get home from a great vacation - you’re HOME, a comfortable, worn place, yet it feels like you’re still in that tropical dream, waking to the sounds of normality all around you…

And here's Roben-Marie's page!

Also, since I didn’t get to posting it yesterday, here’s a bit more progress on my painting. I may let it sit for a day while I play on some smaller pieces of loose canvas, but who knows?

{snuggled in a cocoon of art}

I feel as though I’m snuggled in a cocoon.

In our new apartment, I can only access the internet in the living room (as I forgot the wireless router back in Illinois), so my time online has been cut down drastically. On my magically fixed netbook, sitting in the double chair, purse and supplies next to me, painting in the dim light from a stained glass lamp.

We’re still sharing a bed. Two dogs, two women, one full-size bed. My bedroom holds what supplies I managed to fit in the trailer dragged 1,800 miles behind our car: a table, paints, stamps, large paintings for the walls. The closet here is huge and more than enough room for a creative gal!

I’ve been writing a lot. Long, thoughtful entries in a written journal deepened from reading Journal of a Solitude while crossing the country. In the morning, I sit at my desk, open my journal, and write. I love it -- I am back to the place I started from, where addresses and notes share the same space as doodles, art, and thought spun into sentences.



And then I got an idea: what if I made my own soft-covered journal, but with a quilted, painted cover? What if I added a bit of batting over thin cardstock and kept it all closed with a button? What, then?

Of everything put on the driveway to be packed, only my sewing machine remained. And remains, back in Chicago, along with my iron and waxed linen thread.

How do you create such a journal without these things?

My fingers are pricked, sore. My measurements off, adjusted near the end. My pages sewn in with orange sewing thread from the bottom of my sewing box. But I love it.



I love the abstract way I painted on the front cover and can’t wait to explore that more on this journal’s pages.



I love the upside down flowers on the back, the original front of the journal.



I love the uneven stitches along the final edge, sewn together last.



I love the pages, a paper I’ve never used before.



I love the spark of inspiration, of raw possibility in the air.



I was suddenly inspired to work on another large canvas. This one is 30”x40”. I worked on it and love how the watercolors react with this Yes! canvas. I don’t know where it’s going. So it will say hello to me every morning, and one day, I’ll say hi back with the swish of a brush.

{letting go of fears and getting your hands messy!}

'you can fly' 12"x12" mixed media on canvas

This painting almost never happened.

I originally pulled this canvas out after seeing all the deconstructionism being done by Christine, how she was taking old paintings, ripping off layers, adding new ones, letting some of what was shine through to what is (the upper right corner of this piece has that bit of the original red and orange painting revealed under collaged paper). I loved the idea of taking something already started and turning it into something new, and remember I had a few canvases I started about a year ago that I abandoned after they began going, well, not my way.

But as I pulled this one out, eager to play in my painting style (that is, go to thick swatches of color, collage, and imagery instead of the sketchy style I have in my journals), I questioned why I was doing it. No one buys your paintings, I thought, so why waste your time on something only you’ll see, on something you’ll feel bad about because no one wants to spend money on it?

There’s a bit of validity to that thought, no matter how negative it is — when you’re depending on your art and words to pay the bills, you always have that hanging over your head. It’s not fun. While you want to create just to create, you always have to think further, have plans and projects. Yes, I love it — don’t get me wrong — I just have dark thoughts like the one above sometimes!

It goes back, though, to that hesitation we all have about showing our work to others. That fear that your work isn’t “good enough” or “pretty” or whatever adjective you’re looking for (“grungy” “messy” “vintage”). So we don’t start. Our journals remain empty, our canvases blank. That fear grips us so hard, we continue to comb the internet for more inspiration while putting off our own creative spirit.

But I didn’t want to be controlled by fear or money or outside validation. So I just started throwing down paper, grabbing paint, just getting into the spirit. Put on upbeat music to get me moving. Played with the dogs. Laughed. And then just said,

“Screw it! I’m going to have fun!”

So I started playing. Having fun. Not caring about the outcome. And then, showed it to some friends.

You need to have these friends. Those amazing, sparkling women and men who are there for you, nurture you, listen to your fears and give advice. I am blessed to have such people in my life, and through the magic of the internet, can Skype with them!

I chatted with them. Told them my fears and showed them my work in progress. And that helped so much. Just being able to get things out, to get advice, to hear the world outside myself.

I kept going. I finished the painting while chatting and laughing and sharing.

And I’m so glad I did. 

{working under the sky full of leaves and starts}

First order of business: here's this week's vlog. Outside. In the sun. I couldn't see the computer screen and kept trying to keep up.

I finished the page yesterday while out for an iced chai.

I have to say, getting out and simply doodling in my journal has done wonders. After weeks of prepping for class, rushing through Points of Two entries, and packing, diving back into my journal has help jump-start other creative processes despite having a room full of boxes instead of a working area. Which is fine; I'm down to papers, a toolbox, and a vintage red suitcase filled with goodies. Is it possible to jump into said suitcase? Live among the supplies and scraps and magic wand? I wish we could wrap ourselves in magic and wonder, all that stuff we accumulate that has our muses begging for a moment of time, snatched hours flying by unnoticed.

That happened today, when I took the wood panel painting outside to finish a drawing on it. There's a tree in my front yard that's spread almost like a tent, green leaves hanging off branches that seem to grow up then down into the ground. A dome of nature, with long grass and quiet. And yes, it's in the front, where people can see me, but I don't mind. Put on my pretty pink headphones and do my thing.

Maybe this is all truly like riding a bike. You get distracted, and altered, changed by the crap life throws at you, and then come back, sliding right into that flow of creativity you left for awhile. Things change. A bit of meditation grabbed on a long car ride re-centers and energizes, shows you who you really are, underneath all the failings and bitterness and stress of all this stuff. Secrets. I can only shake my head, detach with love, and count off the days until I move to another state. I'm yearning for that second chance, that new beginning, that moving seems to promise.

And let me say this, while I'm loquacious and frank: thank you. To every single person who's signed up for my class, taken a chance on this whirlwind in my head I'm dying to scream from mountaintops. I am ecstatic for the chance to touch the lives of others, and if one of you comes out with some new way of looking at things, I'll feel accomplished. But more than that, from deeper places, thank you. I've lived with the stress of no more prescription insurance and expensive medications, of bills and calls and denying myself at every turn. And because of you, yes, you, I was able to get meds and pay bills and live with a little more room to breathe. You've helped loosen the corset laced around me, and when I saw sign ups on Tuesday, I actually started to cry. You're the most supportive, amazing, magical people a girl could be blessed to know.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on sitting with my emails until everyone's got an answer. And plan to work out a better organization system. And then, I'm off to the races again, putting together my 'zine or book of journal pages and essays on creativity and journaling, scraps of words and paper put together.

Because isn't that what we're doing, in the end? Collecting scraps and creating meaning, in our own ways?

{an end, a beginning, and class help}

I've gotten a bunch of sign ups for my newest class, and there have been questions. XD Let me help you out!

To enroll, you need to go Artjournaling.ning.com and ask to join the Class Group.

Since I've requested you submit your username with your payment, I'll have a record of you so I can say yes! If you didn't give me a username with your payment, leave me a comment or send a message.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much! I'm a perfectionist, so in laying out the PDF file for the class, I'm printing copies, finding mistakes, and fiddling. I should probably just let it be, but some part of me enjoys creating professional-looking documents for you all! That, and I'm editing video. All the raw material's done, I just need to make it pretty!

On Monday, I allowed myself some art time outside of class and Points of Two, and finished the girl with the wings.

I'm really happy with how she came out. The mistake I made last week actually allowed me to approach her in a new way -- I was forced to think around the "mistake" I made, and ended up creating luminescent wings (by mixing Interference Violet in with the color) that shine when you walk in the room. My love of large canvases continues.

Sometimes, you just need to go and do it. Forget about fear, or not being able to fill the entire canvas -- just grab one with a coupon from Michael's and start painting. I've found focusing on smaller parts at a time helps fill the white space edge to edge.

Then, I draw a girl. The girl is always me, a reflection of how I'm feeling. What I need to do. What I'm looking to achieve. Whatever spiritual or mental problem I'm working through. These girls are me. They are you. They are every one of us who feels and lives in the moment.

Here's the board I picked up at the Habitat for Humanity resale store. I'm pretty sure these are used suspended between poles to make movable places to stand -- the other side is full of foot marks, and the edge it all marked up -- but I thought this was a perfect size to work on for a new idea I got. The top and bottom have metal edges, and I love the feel of found art.

Hard to believe, but this has about five or six layers so far. I'm trying to find a sand paper that gets through the top ones so I can show the color underneath. It's a lot of experimentation. So I'm scraping and scratching and painting wildly. I'm so excited to see how this turns out! I'm treating it as a giant journal page, so anything can happen!