Handmade Art Journal

A journal I made, using a cereal box, brown packing paper, tissue paper, acrylic paint, Dylusions sprays, stencils, matte medium, washi tape, scrapbook papers, old drawing paper, and waxed linen thread.

On writing

I've always considered myself a fairly decent writer. I've always gotten good grades for and compliments on my writing. But lately I question whether I've retained any of that skill. I read certain people's blogs and think, "I can't write like that." "Look at that, it would take me so much effort to produce something even half that good." Of course, I have to step back and remind myself the person in question might very well have slaved over that piece for days and not just pulled it from thin air.

Often I over-think my writing. I'm a perfectionist, and am anal about word-crafting (blog posts not withstanding), so I write, read, edit, read, edit...ad infinitum, and as a result never get much of anywhere anymore. When I was in college, I had deadlines, of course, so only a certain amount of that cycle could take place; my work was probably the better for it. In my fiction, of course, that read-edit cycle (is that the Krebs Cycle of literature, I wonder?) takes place because so much time elapses between work sessions that I have to remember just what the heck I wrote last time. I end up with some interesting continuity errors otherwise.

I'm no particular fan of Stephen King's, horror is not my thing (I've read Eyes of the Dragon and it was fairly good, but has a bit too many references to boogers for my taste); but I've been thinking about this particular post lately. There are a couple of items on the list with which I disagree, more from a personal standpoint than in theory. For instance:

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

I see what he's trying to say there, but if you find yourself repeating the same word over and over, sometimes you just want a slightly different way to say it. I don't use a thesaurus to find a fancy way to say it, but to verify that a given word will have the same connotation I think it does. On the other hand, perhaps what he's trying to say is, "If you're repeating that word over and over, perhaps it's not the word that's the problem."  Hmm. 

I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they 'don't have time to read.' this is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.

I am always a bit baffled by this, too. I suppose the best excuse would be that if you haven't read something in your own genre, one could hardly accuse you of plagiarism if you happen to write pretty much what someone else has already written. Of course, convincing the court of this might be tricky. Reading not only spawns ideas (not ideas to steal, but new scenarios, or different ways of tackling a character or metaphysics in your fictional world, for instance), but also gives you a sense of what good—and bad—writing is. 

This ties in with number 12:

Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It's not just a question of how-to, you see; it's also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing. 

In this I believe he's right. Which brings me back to my original question: have I retained my writing skills? Yes, but it's like my drawing, it will only come out with exercise.

A little doodle

Awhile back, April 22, to be exact, I was bored out of my gourd in staff meeting--a weekly ritual the Air Force must perform, even though I'm sure it leads to the death by boredom of more than a few every year...so was doodling and came up with this

and colored it with pencils I had at work. It stayed in my agenda for a while, then I pasted it in my daily art journal (which isn't so daily, but I digress...), and it stayed there for a while longer.

Then, Jennibellie sent me a little packet of embellishments which I have dubbed Jennibellishments...and there were these tiny little flowers to punch out (upper left)...and that started the whole page.

Mixed media: colored pencil sketch, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, pattern paper, Jennibellishments, brads, glitter glue, K & company dragonfly die cut, homemade "washi" tape, gold metallic Sharpie®, Uni-ball Vision Needle pen 

Art Journal: Stars tell us the past. Listen.

6 x 8,25" Mixed media. Dictionary page, acrylic, die cuts from Jennibellie, Tim Holtz "Curious Possibility" stamps, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, Uni-ball Vision Needle pen.

WOYWW #160

Hi, y'all--some of you might remember the debacle that was my kitchen table and studio in WOYWW #159.  Well...I got the kitchen table all cleared off and a nice table cloth on it, and made lots of headway in the studio (more on that in a bit), but still had to draw on the table this week. I started doodling last night, thinking zentangles, but that's not exactly what came out. Oh, before I show you the new pics, click here to see the vid of my son's journal--I showed you the cover in WOYWW #158.

In the studio, I started consolidating fabric and gave away four empty bins (some fabric might follow). That has freed up a bunch of space; I have more to go, but when I'm finished I should have space for a lot of art supplies, files, etc. I'm also tossing and culling as I go, so don't worry that I'm hanging on to everything. One of the things I started was a fabric journal.  I used a cute (ack!!) little notepad with very nice, strong paper (that's not perforated!) I won as part of a goodie-bag door-prize YEARS ago. There were a few things scribbled in it, including doodles by my son, who was a toddler at the time. I just went over all that.  It's small enough I can keep in in my purse when I shop for notions and matching fabric, or if I have a design idea. I labeled flip-top bins, small IKEA boxes, and Roughneck totes with things like FABRIC 1, 2, 3, REMNANTS 1, PROJECTS, etc. and then everything is getting recorded in the journal, with the box it's in, a swatch, width, and the yardage, plus fiber content, if I know it (a burn test will tell you if it's cotton, silk, wool, linen, ramie, rayon, or some sort of synthetic). Now all I have to do is flip through the journal and pick a fabric, go to that box and Bob's yer uncle.

And this is the work desk...or main event, as it were, with my art journal piece in progress (99%). Mixed media, Pitt pens, water color, water color pencils, and gesso and glue (had a bit of a repair issue due to old miskit).

Hope you enjoyed the show! Mwa!

Will's Journal

Remember WOYWW #158? Well, I finished the journal and the vid. Best viewed fullscreen on YouTube.

Thank you Jennibellie for the inspiration!!

"My son thought the two little dos-à-dos journals I made were really cool and said he'd like to have a journal made for him. A lot of the journals people make are really girly so I tried really hard to keep this one very masculine. I got my idea for using the box and tutorials for sewing in the pages from Jennibellie at http://jennibelliestudio.blogspot.com/ (She's super awesome, by the way.)

Music by http://www.danosongs.com/"

WOYWW #159

Hi, Madame B here. I forgot to mention last week that it was my first WOYWW post! (I was #178...posted on Thursday. Hee.)

We had a marvelous thunderboomer in our neck of the woods today--not all of Austin got rain--lowered the temp and watered the garden a bit. DEEE-lish!

Okay, I never had to go to confession, but I imagine today's post would be a harrowing experience in the confessional: Forgive me, for I have sinned. What is your sin, child? I have allowed a large, wonderful place to work and craft get so totally cluttered with schtuff, I've had to work in the kitchen. Ooooh...I'm not sure there are enough Hail Marys or Our Fathers to cover that, but your penance is banishment from all craft stores until it's tidied up!!

So, before you click the thumbnails of DHOOOM below, a bit of an explanation is due, I think. My house is one constant reno project and things get moved about all the time.  Pic #1 is my kitchen table, because of Pics # 2-3. My studio. *sighs* I had to move things in there and then they didn't get organized at all. Today I was home, giving Valentino meds for his nastily infected eye, so I attacked the studio and started organizing fabric and project bins. Actually made some headway, too. :)

When I came in the kitchen to sit a bit, I was gessoing odd bits of things to use as tags and journals...and playing Bubbletown on the computer. Any wonder I don't get more done?

These are thumbnails, click on them for larger pics!

Thursday Doodles-ICAD

The first of my "index card a day." It's a 5x8 index card from work--I printed a form on the backs of these, used them for one semester and decided I didn't like the form, so the cards are going spare. Rather than throw them in the recycle bin, I decided to use them for Daisy Yellow's ICAD challenge. I doubt I'll do one every single day, but it gets me using my hand again. It's a doodle and demonstrates why I hate journaling on my work *laughs*. It's a combination of Sharpie, colored pencil, and a really old, craptastic roller ball pen. Hey, you use what you have at hand, right?

Ta.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday #158

I know, I know, I'm a day late with this...but here it is. I'm working on a journal for my son to take with him to New Orleans for the summer. He's going to stay with my brother and learn how to work on computers and install CC cameras, techy-stuff, for which he will get paid! After I made the dos-à-dos journals (still need to post those!) I asked him if he wanted a journal to take with him and he said yeah! so many of these smashbook type journals are soooooo girly, so I'm trying to keep this very boy.

I took a box that a store version of Hamburger Helper came in (don't look at me, I don't eat that crap), gessoed it, painted it matte black, then Mod Podged on torn pieces of scrapping paper. Then I mixed ultramarine acrylic with some Mod Podge and scraped that on.

Tonight I'm at the coffee house, writing, but tomorrow...after I get back from the dog park, I'll do the inside covers and start sewing in the signatures.

It appears...

...I'm five days behind on my schedule. Well, hey, you got two posts one day!

If I had a regular reader base...oh, heck, a reader base at all...I'd be more fussed about it, but as it is the one whole person who reads my site understands. *evil grin*

I have a whole raft of things going on. I made a couple of dos-à-dos  journals out of a box that canning rings and lids came in. They're small, but came out quite nice. Even my 15 YO son thought they were cool. Going to do a very small video on them, just to kind of get started on the video blogging. Now I'm making a smash journal for him to take with him to New Orleans; he's spending the summer there with my brother. I have to make sure it's not in the least girly, or he won' t use it. There are a kabillion and one video tutorials and flips and flops of art journals, smash journals, "junque" journals, junky journals, journal journals, and-how-to-desecrate-a-book journals, ruin Moleskine journals (and create very nice art journals from them, too)....you name it journals out there on Youtube, but you know...what we need is just one more lady sharing her art, right?

On the "desecrate a book" thing: at one point in time the idea of "altered books" was just....blasphemy to me. But to be realistic, there are crap-ton of old, falling apart books that will either end up in the landfill or --if someone is doing the right thing-- in the recycle, so why the heck not make something nifty out of them? There are all kinds of artists making sculptures out of old books, but this guy really blows me away. I'd go insane trying to do all that. Particularly, I think old, out of date textbooks are a prime candidate for upcycling into art.

One of the projects I want to do is creating a memory journal out of a really, really old book I had as a little girl (©1950!).  In fact, there are several I'd like to do that with. This particular one was a favorite of mine, about an old guy who has a clock shop. Anyway, none of the original pages would be taken out or destroyed. I'll vid it when I do it.

Took the dogs to the pet clinic today. Turns out they only do vaccines at 1:20 PM...so I had to haul them back home, and then I left the old man at home and just got Abby taken care of. Tested for heartworms (negative, woot!!), annual boosters, they micro-chipped her for free (it'll cost $18 to register the chip), claws clipped, a tube of Advantage for each dog and HW preventative for Abby all for $87.50. Not too shabby. Serg is is 13, so they might not even give him shots. I will have him tested for HW. He might need sedating for the claws, though, since they're so long and it would HURT. So...might not do that either.

Abby was a scaredy-cat, but behaved very well. She's a very sweet dog, but just not used to other humans. So...after a few days, I'm going to start walking her again and taking her to dog parks and stuff; she really needs to get out and be social.

Meanwhile...I discovered bugs in my ceiling. The good news is that I don't think they are termites. The bad news is, they're probably ants. Bleah.

 

Art, Depth, and Self-Doubt.

I have a very, very, very good friend, who also happens to be an author. She writes new-agey books on spirituality (that's how we met, in a round-about sort of way), and the Shadow World vampire series. Her blog, Crazy Beautiful, is down there on the right under RSS feeds, if you care to check her out--she's one of the most awesome people I know (and that's saying something, because I know some fairly awesome peeps).

Anyway....on Tuesdays she posts "Tuesday Currents" in which she writes about what she's eating, drinking, doing, watching, listening to, working on, thinking about, etc. Last Tuesday, she wrote about watching videos by Jennibellie, who is a drop-dead gorgeous young lady in Nottingham, England. She's an artist and makes these fabulous journals. I spent night before last, staying up waaaaaay too late, watching all of her tutorials. Why is this important, you ask? Well, it's a long story, and I'm not going into all of it here.