Art Journal Every Day: Page In Progress

Wow it's April 1!  Time to sign-up for the next round!  I will post a sign-up post mid-afternoon today. 

Why do I keep making you sign-up each month?  A couple reasons. 

If you're a person who is participating all year long, I think it's important to affirm your commitment every thirty days or so. 

If you're new to the project, I don't want you to feel like you're coming late to the party.  We begin anew every month! 

If you've fallen off of the art journaling wagon and are feeling guilty, I want you to be able to let that go.  Your commitment ends at the end of the month!

If you're wanting to do a little art journaling boot camp, a month is about the right length to really push yourself.  You can see the end in sight, but you can also see the results of your hard work! 

And finally, I'm always looking for guest posters who are participants.  So each month I scour the link list looking for people who are actively playing along!

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here.  Please read this post first.  There is a flickr group for sharing right here.  Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day!  No need to finish anything or even like it.  Just play!  List of March participants is here.

Today I thought I'd share what happens in my art journal when I get busy.  Sometimes even ten minutes a day seems like too much, you know?

1. I prepped my page with some masking tape down the center seam (to discourage paint leakage to other pages). 
2. I covered the masking taped area with gesso. 
3. I collaged some book pages, sheet music, and vintage letters to my page. 
4. In the center I layered a hand cut magazine silhouette over a Crafter's Workshop stencil (that sunburst is one of my faves).  I sprayed both with Adirondack Color Wash in two colors.
5. After removing the stencil and drying the mist, I used a wet paintbrush to push the Color Wash around.  I let it dry.

Here's a close-up of just the left side:

Unfortunately, the next time I sat down to art journal was many days later.  So I made up for lost time!

1. I stamped a ginormous title.
2. I stamped numbers for each of the days I had missed (1-5) and then added one thing that had happend that day.  Diary shorthand.
3. For this day (March 6) I added a larger number and a longer journal entry.
4. I finished the session off with a little bit of doodling (the blue scallop-y things).

The next day I came back to my page and decided that I hated it.  This happens to me all the time.  I think it happens to everyone.  The trick is to not allow it to defeat you.  Rather be inspired to take steps to change what you're seeing.  Once you figure out that you can "fix" the things you don't like, you'll be encouraged to keep pushing past the "I hate it" phase and then you'll be much more productive!  Not to go on too big a tangent here, but one of the things people ask me about is how do you create so much?  A big part of it is that I make time in my life for art.  Another big part of it is stubborness.  I don't generally abandon projects.  I keep pushing and pushing and painting and playing until it comes around.

1. Gesso is my favorite way to cure any ill.  In My Big Fat Greek Wedding the father's solution to all ills was to put some windex on it.  In my life, I recommend gesso for just about everything!  You can see that I put some gesso on the title, in the number, along the edge of the big center circle, and in the scallops.  Love it!
2. I also added two leaves.  The bottom one was drawn onto the page (using some brand new markers sent to me by the good people from Letraset -- I've been playing with their alcohol based markers).  And the top leaf is a reject from another project.  My art journal will always be a receptacle for all rejeted bits and bobs from "real" projects!

The next day I fiddled with both sides of the page.

1. I outlined the letters and numbers here on the left side. 
2. I colored the word March in with an orange marker. 
3. I added some color with washi tape along the top edge of the page.

This right side of the page benefitted greatly from me cleaning up my desk.

1. I added my journaling and stamped date.
2. The leaf was a test print that I just cut out and glued to the page.
3. I decided to embrace the large book page on the right edge of the page.  Next to it I added a sprayed scrap (that's a Prima mask by the way) and some scraps of patterned paper and a bit of washi tape.  Amazing how the page is almost completely filled now!

Final day...
 

I added a tag to the left side and some journaling to the right.  I could probably go back in and play with some more details, but I'm done for now.  Some pages are more "finished" and intricate (usually when I have more time) and others are just done.  And done is good with me!  And there's no rule that you can't go back to something that's "finished."  I think an art journal that reflects your life is well, always going to be a work-in-progress because we are works-in-progress. 

Some things I learned over these nine days:

1. Love how washi tape so effortlessly adds a bit of transparent color.  It's like adding very controlled watercolor paint to something!  Need to find lots of ways to exploit this.  Hmmmmm....
2. Love the way the squares and rectangles of miscellaneous paper turned out on the right side of the page.  I feel like this is a great idea to use on a scrapbook page.  What if that sprayed flower were a photograph?
3. Hate the leaves.  They're just floating there.  A reminder to myself: Always ground your images.  And one way to do that is to go over the edge of the page.  If I had just added some more leaves down to the bottom of the page and off the page, it might have worked.  They would also look good crawling up the right side of the page over that book page.
4. I had originally been planning to fill the silhouette shape with text.  Looking at it now, I like how the collaged papers fill her body instead.  That said, I might have preferred the phrase "March comes in like a lion" inside her body instead of to the left.
5. I like how the tag adds the squareness of the right side of the page to the left side, but I'm not sure about it.  It looks a little miscellaneous.  Note for next time: Two smaller supporting tags (one on each side) would look great and solve that problem.  The rule of threes really does work!
6. I have a confession.  When I was working on this page I was supremely conscious of the fact that I was going to photograph it and use it for a blog post.  I can see lots of places where "trying to be impressive" back fired on me.  Big lesson: Don't create for other people.  Create just for yourself.  If other people like it, great.  If not, who cares?  Be true to you.

That seems like a good place to end, doesn't it?

Happy Journaling!

---

P.S. I was a guest on Paperclipping Roundtable this week, along with Donna Downey.  This week's topic?  ART JOURNALING!  Listen to it here.