Art Journal Every Day: May 2017 Picks

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, there is a short introduction here.  All of the previous posts can be found archived here.  Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day!  No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek.  Even if you're not on social media, you can see everything (from twitter, pinterest, instagram, and facebook) that uses that hashtag here. 

One of the reasons I love art journaling is that there are so many different ways to do it.  Different styles, different purposes, different formats -- so many beautiful differences!!  And yet, even in those differences I can always find inspiration for my own style and my own kind of art.  

Here are some images from the #artjournaleveryday hashtag that piqued my interest recently:

I love this "series" spread from aisanika.  If you look, it's two very similar designs but she's played with small details -- color, the size of the marks, the exact configuration of the leaf.  All of these things lead to big differences in the overall impact.  I'm encouraged to experiment with a small "series" like this one in my art journal.  In fact, I imagine you could actually fill an entire journal with a series like this.  Each day another variation!

Swoon.  This drawing by ninnynoo made me stop and stare.  Love the two shades of blue behind the figure.  Or maybe it's three shades of blue?  AND I love the way that she ended the color in the area just behind the figure, leaving the rest of the page open to whatever is next.  This kind of partial creation of art is exactly what I do in my art journal.  I love it.  AND I love the stylized hair and the words in her hair.  Words tangled in hair have long been a favorite of mine.  It captures how I feel so often: my feelings are all swirling around me and tangled and trailing.

I love the contrast of closed and open space on this spread from kellitakesnotes.  And, I didn't realize it until I read what each of the artists had written, but this page from padmerlin quotes the same source of inspiration:

A pretty good hint that I should look up @elisabethev.  And so, I did.  And her feed is nothing like my style.

So clean.  So white.  It's beautiful.  And yet, not a feed I'm naturally drawn to.  But I love, love, love these two pages inspired by her.  I feel a little bit like I'm playing a game of telephone -- the childhood game where one person whispers a phrase into another person't ear and then that person passes it on to another person until it reaches the end of a long line of people.  The final person says what they heard and it's usually hilarious.  Some odd variation on the original sentence.  This is like an art version of that idea.  I don't know what the original lesson was, but I love the interpretation I'm getting.  It inspires me to do a little bit of interpreting of my own!

This image from rosieraindrops just grabbed me right away!  It's full of story!  What is the rider looking at?  Are they running away or towards something?  I love the red orange background that seems to subsume the riders.  And I love the white marks that the artist has added.  I'm taking this page as a reminder not to be so careful when I'm painting around collage bits.  I love the messy energy of this piece!

Likewise, I love the freedom of this laurenlikesblog page.  The energy just jumps right off the page.  I also love how she has embraced contrast -- the rigid pink square contrasted with the brush strokes.  Fabulous.  I want to do more plain paper collage -- collage with paper that is colored but not patterned.  Also, she's paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes and a kind of personal life mantra: 

“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
― Erin Hanson

 

Thank you for posting these round bodies, mrodriguez.taller!  It's lovely to see round bodies being celebrated and shared.  As a round body myself, I am disappointed that I don't paint more lusciously curvy figures.  Personal goal: get curvy in my art!

When I saw this page from journal.sushi my first thought was AMAZING!  And P.S. I would kill myself before I'd draw all of those little pod shapes.  And then I paused.  Wait a second!  That's exactly what so many of the commenters on my lace pages in my art journal said.  I think sometimes simple actions done over time can look overwhelming and difficult.  But those who create them know that these things are completed the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

I love the sense of humor in this page by stewart.fla.  It made me smile.  Franken-cat.  I love the idea of this kind of magazine collage.  I want to give it a try in my own journal!

I love this watercolor sketch by kreativmanufaktur!  The colors are yummy.  The look of the sketch is loose and yet captures everything so well.  Sometimes I get too tight when I sketch real objects.  I love this kind of wonky easy style.  Also, I forget to sketch the things that are most important to me: my beloved art supplies.  It's time to get out my watercolors and get going!

I hope you enjoyed this peek at some of the exciting artwork that inspired me.  I hope it inspires you too!

Thanks for stopping by!