Happy Holidays!!

Off for a Christmas break in a few, so I leave with... what else?... the obligatory cat and the christmas tree photo... he's not really annoyed, just doesn't like the flash in his face.

Pink tree this year!!!

a tale of many journals...

After the past two or three years of journaling I have struggled to figure out the "best" way for me to do this. I've tried giant composition books with both words and visual journaling, but they get so bulky to carry around. I've tried just using a visual journal in something like a 5x7 spiral bound sketchbook, but have found that I wanted to do more journaling with words than that allowed for.

Then a couple months ago I started using my daily planner (really just a blank book with lined pages where I have all the hours of the day marked off for appointments and the like). The first blank book was a bit too big as it spanned a couple months and got hard to carry around. So this month I had a cheap $1.00 journal from the grocery store laying around so I grabbed it for my monthly appointment book. But I started jotting down stuff ... random notes, movies watched, what I had for lunch, grocery lists... all the stuff that flows through a daily diary/planner/journal... and I started using it to spark pages in my art journal -- which is mostly pictures. There is room in the little everyday journal for the occasional visual page, but mostly what ends up there becomes fodder for future pages. And because this is a spiral bound journal it is not precious and all kinds of stuff gets jotted down over the course of a day.

An example:

Here is a page from my daily book in which I noted one word "blustery" after going out at lunch.



Later that night I couldn't get the word blustery out of my head, and when I was playing with my art journal, this page appeared...



The best of both worlds, for now anyway...I don't know that there is a "perfect" way to journal, but this is working for me.

Looking Up

Let's see...what have I scanned, but not posted yet? I have a bunch of stuff TO scan and get up, but what's hanging out on the back burner...

here's a couple pages that seem hopeful... which is good for a dreary monday!



magazine ad, acrylic paint, and sharpie marker... it's the first page of my current art journal.



the lantern is from a magazine spread, which I enlarged/expanded into a full page spread with paint. I only meant to include one rub on image in the upper right corner, but two came off the page, so c'est la vie. I liked how they echoed the cast iron work in the lantern. "WALLS" is stick on letters -- easy. The rest is rub on letters -- not so easy... for some reason they were fighting me... but it all works back to the theme of the page, so all is good!!

A top twelve list...plus some others...

A young friend of mine asked me to suggest some documentaries to watch. I deal with them a lot during my day job... so here, in no particular order, is a list of some of my favorites...

1. Grey Gardens

*~*oh those wacky (and I DO MEAN wacky) Kennedy Cousins.

2. The Up series (7 Up, 14 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up)

*~*Michael Apted's must see TV. Start with the first one and you'll be hooked.

3. Tough Guise

*~*in response to boys beating up on others...

4. Killing Us Softly III

*~*...and society beating up on women.

5. Affluenza

*~*this'll make you cut up those credit cards!

6. Capturing the Friedmans

*~*just what is truth? And whose truth is truthier?

7. Spellbound

*~*bee all you can bee... {follow this one up with Wordplay for all that's nerdy, uh, wordy...}

8. Best Boy / Best Man

*~*are the different really all that different?

9. Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor

*~*don't watch this without a box of kleenex...clang, clang, clang went the trolley...

10. Yellow Brick Road

*~*use up the rest of your kleenexes on this one... there's no place like home.

11. The Story of the Weeping Camel

*~*give the box of kleenexes to the camel...

12. The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream

*~*makes me want to move to England and buy a bike {or a pony} to get 'round to the shops

There are PLENTY of others... but these are some really great ones...

It's Criminal How Much I Like This Show...

OK... so like the commercial says... "Confess..." so I am...

I am addicted to Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Seriously addicted. My little show had a bumpy year last year, but since it's move to the USA network on cable they're back with a vengence. So as I sit here in anticipation of tonights VSE (Very Special Episode) "Untethered" where Vincent D'Onofrio's character Detective Goren goes undercover in a prison mental ward, here's some art I did in anticipation of the season opener back in early October.



~~acrylic paint over gesso, magazine ad, stencil, sharpie, a couple chipboard letters, and silver paint pen...

Too Bad, So Sad...

a posting from my emotional hinterlands...

Ouch!

Suffering through a sinus/stress headache today, so thought I'd share this page I did several weeks ago when under some STRESS...



Took off for the bookstore at lunch for a browse and came home with Journal Revolution. Looking through it and finding really great tips.

The authors blog here

I suspect (hope){think} they'd like my stress page...

blah-ging

Oh to be this:



Instead of the ten-toed sloth I feel like today...why is it so hard for my brain to focus on more than one thing at a time?

(page from my art journal using wrapping paper, duct tape, painted paper toweling, magazine ad, some stick on letters, a tag from a new purse, and a LOT of glue :0)

Think Pink on a Grey Day

It's a cold and rainy day here in happy valley, so I thought I would post one of the happier spreads in the art journal I'm currently working on/in. Pink makes me happy and this "think pink" spread makes me think about the song of the same name from the musical "Funny Face."

Sometimes I try and integrate my art journal and my everyday journal, but it never seems to work too well. So right now the everyday journal informs the art journal. This spread was inspired by the background graphic in an article about the Broadway musical "Legally Blonde." It still feels like it needs something ... white highlights maybe... I am especially unhappy with the pencil marks that outline the text, although it's hard to see them in the picture...

Suggestions anyone?

EDM Challenge #146 -- Favorite Food

So the latest challenge for this week of Thanksgiving is to draw your favorite food. I have a LOT of faves (wink) but when I came home from the grocery store with a pint of mint chocolate cookie ice cream I realized I had a perfect subject. And... trying to capture a bowl of ice cream before it melted is one way to short-circuit the voices in my head. So... while the speed made things not perfect (see, there's that word again...) I think it does have a nice energy about it. Putting it in a green bowl, well... the bowls are just fun. They're sort of round and square at the same time.

Happy Holiday season all... and more mint and chocolate ice cream for all!!

EDM Challenge #145 -- Autumn Tree

The Yahoo Group "Everyday Matters" which is devoted to drawing your life has weekly challenges. Whenever I try and get back to drawing/sketching/painting I like to check them out and see what I can do with them. Last week's challenge was "draw an autumn tree." This is one by my University Library on 100lb. Bristol with my travel watercolors and a Pilot pen. I struggle with trees trying to integrate the branches with the leaves. Not sure how successful I am here, but there's something about this perky little tree I like.



**updated 11/21 with a better scan of the tree

"You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering." -- Henri-Frederic Amiel

Here it is, another Friday, and it's time to launch back into our second weekend of performances for "Painting Churches" by Tina Howe. As if people don't have enough family drama of their own around the holidays... we're giving them the opportunity to eavesdrop on some other family's problems...

A new beginning

OK, so I seem to have gotten away from posting here... for a very long time. But real life DOES get in the way, doesn't it? But here I am, trying to rededicate myself to being more creative in any and every way... so I've redesigned this site, and jazzed it up so it's all sweet and pretty, and so I'll try and get back into the habit of posting and sharing and all that good stuff.

So... we start back with a quote I read the other day and which is SUPER profound for me. I tend to listen to the bad voices in my head casting aspersions on my worth, and the worth of my creations... but hopefully I can work on that.

"Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want. That type of self criticism is significantly deterring."
John Eliot, Ph.D., Reverse Psychology for Success