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With the studio being packed up, many of my supplies are now stored here, inside a vintage red suitcase of unknown origins. It sits alongside my papers and a tool-box of paint and such. I love opening it, looking at the wonders inside. I could get used to working out of such a thing. Plus, it's portable and ready for anything!
Click on the images to go to Flickr, where I've put notes on the photos to tell you what's inside!
Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.
Today is hot, for the first time in a week, and I'm still getting ready to walk to the store for a nice ice-cold diet coke.
This week's theme was nostalgia. It came about when I told Roben-Marie I was already working on two pages in my journal, two Very Important Pages, and wondered if we could use one as a theme?
You see, I was driving home last weekend, and decided to stop at one of my favorite places for lunch in the Old Neighborhood -- that moniker given to the place where you grew up. So as I was passing though, I thought, "Why don't I stop at my elementary school?"
Now, I left there over 15 years ago, but the moment that scent of wood-chips and summer heat washed over me, all these memories came back. I couldn't believe the place smelled the same as it did when I was little. And while equipment's been moved, added, and removed, there's still the swings (now off to the left) I used to love playing on and the mass of connected jungle-jim in blue and orange where I broke my nose in 5th grade. Cracked, rusting, and soft at the edges from over a decade of children running all over, it still stands as I remembered. The bar where people would flip over and through their arms (which still makes me go ick!). The weird monkey bars. The slide. Did you know there are bars at the top of slides? This is a detail I conveniently forgot when chasing the leader in Capture the Leader up the slide -- I ran into it full-force, broke my nose, and slid down the corkscrew into all the other kids behind me.
My nose hurts, sometimes, as a reminder. It's one of those crystal clear memories I'll have for the rest of my life.
Sitting down to journal after a week + of not was hard. I had to keep walking away. I feel out of practice. I'll have to fix this ASAP!
Enjoy your weekend!
And Roben-Marie's page for this week. I wonder where she got that font? ;)
This afternoon, I was thinking, "I haven't done any art lately, have I?"
The reasoning for this goes: The last time I sat in the studio working with paints and such was last Thursday, after a day out with iced chai. This week's live vlog was interrupted by circumstance and appointments. The weekend was spent out with friends all over the city.
So I felt guilty. This is because, as Linda Woods said on Twitter today, "Sometimes it's hard when your job is what everyone else does for a hobby." When you don't go and work in your journal, it's because life's busy. When I don't go in and work on a painting or in my journal or make a video, I worry because projects and such are what I depend on for a living. Sending out emails and writing articles and teaching classes. I'm still in this valley between finishing one project and starting another, but haven't been very pro-active, and I need to be.
My thought, thus, made me feel guilty. And like a slacker. But then I realized something -- what I was doing for fun was just as much art as anything I create.
And here's where we enter silly fangirl territory. Because in order to finish this post, I'm going to have to show you what I was working on over the weekend.
Ahem. Yes, they're wallpapers. Now that I have the desktop computer, I can work in Photoshop much easier, which means I've been making stock images, collecting textures, and re-building my brush collection.
Funny thing is, I haven't made digital art for fun with no hope for future use in years. And a lot of what I've learned making my own graphics and laying out PDFs and books and teaching in classes has really influenced where I am now. So I sat back, after I felt a little guilty, and realized this is art, too. Sure, they're wallpapers for a movie I may be a little enamored with, but I'm happy with them.
There is so much I used to know how to do that I've simply forgotten. I had to sit back and try to remember how to apply a texture. How each layer style worked. Opacity. Effects. Even color combination. Sitting and doing art different than I have been for the last five years was fun. I thought differently.
And all this has me thinking more and more about digital art. I've been hugely impressed with Roben-Marie's work, every little thing she makes amazing me (and I was able to preview sets made with my artwork today, and am just....floored by her talent). I've done hybrid journal pages, starting with paint and ending on the computer. So now I'm thinking of going deeper. Exporting more. And what if took the digital and brought it back out of the computer and into the physical world and applied it. How would that work? And I'm excited to try and answer that question.
Anyway, I guess all this means that we don't need to strive to make high art, or "right" art, or what's good right now or popular. We can sit down in front of our computers and play with screenshots from a movie just because and maybe, just maybe, can bring it all together and create ourselves along the way.
(The wallpapers are available on my LiveJournal, btw. I'm going to go hide, now.)
(I am working on all the emails from the garage sale; you should have a response tomorrow.)
Remember how I said I wanted to sell some of the things I cleaned out of the studio? Well, here they are. Just odds and ends I won't be using anymore that I thought, maybe, someone else could get usage out of. Claiming happens in the comments - first come, first served. Shipping will be figured out once I see what you're getting. ;)
Books
The Art of Personal Imagery by Corey Moortgat- $10
Collage Discovery Workshop & Collage Discovery Workshop: Beyond the Unexpected by Claudine Hellmuth - $8 each
Kaleidoscope: Ideas & Projects to Spark Your Creativity by Suzanne Simanaitis - $10
What it Is by Lynda Barry - $ 12
The Decorated Page by Gwen Diehn - $18
Living the Creative Life by Rice Freeman-Zachary - $12
Life is a Verb by Patti Digh - $11
The Journaler's Handbook by Tracey White - $9
Supplies
Both are slightly used, but in great condition.
Soft Pastels - $5
Oil Pastels - $4
Martha Stewart Bird Stamps - $ 5 each or $9 for both
Celestial Stamps are $3 each
I used this for, like, a week or 2. In February. So, if you'd like a pretty calendar for the rest of the year, or just want to rip out the art, it's yours for $13.
Yum! An Amy Butler designed craft tote. This this is useful, has tons of pockets, and is pretty. I love it, but have enough boxes (and a new toolbox). Wouldn't you love to tote your stuff around in it? And all for $13! I can't even find this thing on their website anymore!
I totally jumped on this bandwagon, and then stopped. It's fun, but not really my thing. This is a Polaroid 600 classic, works great. $18
This thing is totally fun to make stickers with, and is a hit with the nieces and nephews. Unfortunately, I don't use it enough to warrant keeping it. There's no tape inside, btw. $5
Ahh...mediums. I'm a fan of trying all of them and seeing what I like.
Grey Gesso - remember all the fun I had with this? I just don't use it all that much. In fact, I never used it after that vid. $5 for the bottle.
Modge Podge. Another thing I've tried and was like, "Eh." Half used. $3
Gloss medium. Will extend the life of your paints without breaking things down with water. Used like, twice. $6
Acrylic Flow Retarder. There's a journaling book out there that does cool marbling effects using this...it'll make your acrylics like watercolors. Unfortunately, I was never brave enough to try. $7 Never used.
Glazing Medium. So much fun to make glazes with your paints! $6
Diamond Glaze. Ever seen those bottle cap charms? With stuff stuck in them? This is what you'd use. Very fun. $4
Random hole punch. $5
Random stamp pad, used once or twice (I'm not a that color green person!). $3
I'm almost done packing things. Next week -- papers! See ya then! Email me questions or claim in the comments.
<3 kira
Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.
Sipping tea on a nice summer Friday. This week, I suggested adding a sketch to our pages, as I've been in a sketching mood. Roben-Marie was a bit hesitant, which is understandable - many people don't think they can sketch, and so, don't even try. But practice makes perfect, lovelies; five or six years ago, I couldn't draw a thing. And think I still can't. But I love the freedom and discovery and thrill of taking out a pencil and just playing.
And this page doesn't have much on it - not a lot of writing or doodles. But there's a story written there in the swoops of the pencil, swirls of a brush loaded with ink. It starts with me finally getting out of the house, drinking that iced chai I love, and putting on my big pink headphones. Grabbing a pencil and playing around. Shaping the eyes. Going back, in my mind, to shapes I've loved before, those I've hated, and how I wanted to reconcile them into something good.
Working with a blender that wasn't cleaned off shot down the coloring idea. I spread over white paint and spied an old painting from the corner of my eye, how I love the shape of the girl's head, and so I try again, over the paint, with ink. The eyes are big. The hair's odd. And while she isn't the best, she represents me getting back to the journal, having fun, not stressing about classes or blogging or painting on large canvases. Just getting in there, doing my thing. I started as a drawer; my first journal is full of the world around me interpreted through the tip of a pen, and I want to get back to that, somehow.
This was the first page created from my toolbox and suitcase, on the floor in what was a studio and is now half-packed away. Could this still work without it all? Yes. Yes it can. So here she is, a picture with so much written, the letters have blended to paint and shape.
And here's Roben-Marie's. See? She did lovely sketches! I never said they had to be of people!
I'm off to grab some tech gear and clean out my inbox. :D
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?
Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.
This week, hearts was the word! I decided to go digital since I had the perfect background already on my computer, a scrapbooking paper I made for Valentine's Day.
I didn't know how I'd feel about working in a digital manner -- I used to do a lot of graphics, and am kinda rusty. I also lost most of my Photoshop brushes when my hard drive crashed. So....could I create a page digitally that didn't look horrible?
I think I did a pretty good job for being rusty! I certainly need to play around more, let myself be and just ENJOY.
Make sure to check out Roben-Marie's blog for the story behind her page!
Roben-Marie's page:
Re: yesterday's post. I'll be putting up pictures tomorrow, when I've had time to sort through more stuff! Thank you for all the comments -- you have no idea how helpful this will be!
