Another Journal Page...

Sort of from the Journal Fodder 365 prompt but turned more into an introspection of my art...

Journal Fodder 365

I joined a group on Ning called Art Journaling and one of the groups I am in is Journal Fodder 365, based on the book by Eric Scott and David Modler. It is a year long look into Art Journaling and the Ning group will go month by month with posted pages from the prompts.

The first month is a lot of introspection about who we are and how we got to where we are now in our lives. Topics like who are the pivotal people in our lives, what roads did we take and not take, what are our personal mythologies...along with the first week prompt of "I am", being the roles we play and so on.

I suspect the prompts will generate a lot of pages. Here is the first one I did...

Design Seeds...

I love the site Design Seeds. It is a great way to look at color combinations and use them to spark creativity. A few of the combos I have enjoyed lately are below.

But do go to the site and explore... very cool!

Coffee Garden and Gelli idea...

Today we had MLK Jr. day off from school so I went out to coffee with my friend Marilyne at Coffee Garden near my house.

She regaled me with the delights of being retired and then I caught her up with all the happenings around school that she has missed this year so far. I think she has the better deal!

Down the street from the cafe is an old wall sign from days gone by:

Then I went to Beer's Books to grab some of their sale hardcover volumes to tear up and use for art journals. Some I will gut the pages and others I may use as altered books, but either way on Monday's the outside cheap table ($ per hardcover) is half off so I walked away with 9 books for less than $5. Works for me!

Also today I played with an idea I had in the shower (why do all good ideas happen there when I can't write them down?)... make strips of plastic and weave them together to make a stencil for the Gelli plate.

So I made a prototype out of paper and tried it out...

liking the results. Now to cut up some old transparencies I no longer need for school!

And finally a second pull with another color... love it!

3 Days to Play...

I love 3 day weekends!

So first of all my general ideas about why I blog come down to it being a creative outlet for me. And maybe somewhere along the journey I will connect with other creative sorts and share ideas and art fun.

I found out about a growing your blog event through my art friend Leslie and found that I got there too late, registration had closed. It turns out to be ok though because I think I want mine to grow slowly for now since I am sort of limited in time... if I find too many creative things to do I end up not doing anything at all. That's just how I am!

And finding out about the Grow your blog event sent me clicking through all sorts of blogs and it is now almost noon and I just managed to get ready for my day! Glad I have an extra day to play!

We have to take the dog to the doggie wash now (a major event considering how dirty she manages to get herself in a short month or so since last bath)... more later.

Later...

Andy helping Maggie with her bath...

Finally she doesn't stink! How she manages to get so stinky in such a short time amazes me!

Things to figure out...

I realized a week had gone by and I had not written a single post, although I was doing some art every evening after work. Mostly I was too tired (after teaching Middle School all day) to stay up and extend it to the blog.

In light of that I want to figure out how to get photos onto the blog more quickly. I may try via my phone although then I don't have a chance to crop or adjust brightness or anything, which makes me wonder if I need to do that anyway?

I need to ask around and see what other art-posting bloggers do. I already know that a couple of people who do cooking (Paleo) blogs spend a couple of hours a night on their blogs... I am not willing to do that. Teaching during the day only leaves me with a certain amount of time and energy in the evenings and I don't want to spend it all putting things on a blog.

So that brings me to the other thing I realized I needed to figure out: why am I doing the blog?

For me it is more a record keeping way for me to see what I have been doing artwise. So I ask myself, "Self, why can't you just post to Flickr and not worry about the blog?" I do like the times when people respond to things I have posted but then I could see that in Flickr too.

I spent some time yesterday looking at the art blogs I enjoy and realized most of them (95% maybe) also have the blog because they do other things online: online classes, sell in Etsy, etc. They use the blog both to show people what they are doing but also as a constant reminder of their classes, shop, etc. I have neither, so again, is a blog necessary or just a place to put photos?

I need to think about this...
But today I am going to go play with the gelli printing plate and do other art with a new art friend in Tracy. I always get so inspired when I can art play with friends.

More gel plate prints and week one of art journal calendar...

Sunday is a great day to play with the gel printing plate. Of course now I have a gazillion backgrounds -- need to work with them!

I am getting better at making several passes over each page to get depth of colors and interest... Now I wish I had another week of vacation to play more!

And Week 1 of the January Art Calendar is done...

Word for the Year...

I saw a lot of websites with this idea over New Year's so I thought I would give it a try. Instead of making resolutions (that never get kept), pick a word, one word, that you can focus things you do over the year from. Here are a few other blogs that explain it much better than I could:
Gretchen Rubin
One Word 365
My One Word
Christine Kane

So, after toying with words like Creative or Gratitude or Patience I finally honed in on the word release.
R E L E A S E
Release seems to fit a lot of my needs for the year:
Release of creative energy (in letting myself do more art)...
Release of anger...
Release of bad health or bad eating habits...
Release of worry...
Release of fears...
etc.

What to do with all those Christmas tree lights...

This evening I walked into the living room and found this... Andy said he missed the lights and since I wasn't riding my bike lately...

Background Pages...

I did some playing with the Gelli Arts gel printing block yesterday and today. Plus today did a little stenciling for backgrounds.

It is not the greatest photo -- that should also be one of my goals this year: to learn how to set up the camera to take better photos of my journal and other art work. I also want to learn how to do a video for a journal flip.I need a tripod to start with...

Another page and background.

I wonder if there is a You Tube video on how to set up for an Art Journal Flip video?

Art Journal Calendar Project

One of my art goals this year is to do a monthly Art Journal Calendar to highlight what I do for daily art during the year. I found an old art journal that I had taken pages out of and had exactly enough pages left for 2 years of calendars! Serendipity!
Here is my January start:

And my entry for the first day of a New Year! Great beginnings!