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Italy Journal, A Pear Shaped House

My watercolor moleskine journal came back nearly full of sketches, ideas and words. Working with it to further develop the fertile seeds of ideas is part of the fun.

Frittering

Frittering my life away - or at least my Saturday night.


Frittering: To spend, bit by bit, on trifles
To break into small fragments
First known use: 1728
"whittle away," 1728, from fritters "fragment or shred," possibly from a noun sense, but this is not recorded as early as the verb; perhaps an alteration of 16c. fitters "fragments or pieces," perhaps ultimately from O.Fr. fraiture "a breaking," from L. fractura. Or perhaps from a Germanic source : rags)


Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." Henry David Thoreau


On the other hand, Nietzche: "I feel as though I've frittered my life away for what else is there to do with a life?"

My carry along journal for Italy. Variety of papers, Rollabind(ed?, bound?)

Buon Giorno Italia, again

From my first trip to Rome where Jon and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary

Oh yes, indeed. I'm dusting off my Italian phrase book! This is one excited woman here and talk about synchronicity! About a year ago, I was invited to teach in Tuscany and for one reason and then another, couldn't do it this year.

A few months ago, I met a new frienc. Susan is an art teacher taking a year's sabbatical in Fabriano, Italy. Susan and I hooked up, bonded and she invited me over to visit. Wierd, right? I guess it was in the universal plan to go to Italy this year.

Traveling light, we were there for five glorious days

Part of the time, the charming bed and breakfast Fonte Fresco will be my home base. In the mountains, just outside of Fabriano, there will be time, peace and opportunity to draw, sketch, walk and breath. The pictures are absolutely amazing. And the price! Yikes, it is really affordable. Wouldn't this be an excellent place to hold a week-long workshop?

Sketch time was at a premium. So I worked quick and loose, concentrating on color. This was our anniversary evening and the waiter wrote something in my book. Which I cannot read and he wouldn't translate. 

The other part of the time will be spent in the ancient walled city of Fabriano, exploring the Museo della Carta (papermaking museum) and the art of the city. Yes, I will be in heaven.

Susan's Journal

My friend, Susan Cohen's journal.. I spy fabric, paper,

stripes and a cat.

Tab-by inspiration (haha)

Old Journal

Meandering a bit ...

Nudge 11: Weave

Fun with Paper Weaving! This nudge might take a bit longer than five minutes so break it down or - what the heck - take 10 or 15 minutes! 

Cut a strip of paper, try to keep it even, about a 1/2 inch. 

Cut a bunch of slits down the length of the journal page that you want to weave. The orientation of the book is different in this next photo (sorry). Can you see the slits?

Now just weave the paper strip in and out through the slits.

I just dabbed a bit of glue stick down and stuck the end of the paper strip down. It probably won't go anywhere though.

I turned the top of the strip down as well. Just fun to leave a bit sticking up at the top of the page for a tab. Love the index-y tabby thing.

As you can see from the facing journal page, you can weave an entire journal page! Woohoo !  It's a great thing to do with pages of writing, a 5 minute collage page or other pages where you may have a background but not much else. Go forth and WEAVE!

Creative Revolution {September '10}

My friend Karen says, "Art is natural to the human condition."
And furthermore ...
Creativity is natural to the human condition
Let's just say that. Out loud. Yep, right now.

You may not be quite ready yet to claim "I am creative." There is no sense in forcing yourself to say something that you don't believe. Yet.

Creativity is something you need to foster. You just really need to be brave. You are probably already being creative but not giving yourself credit.
Creativity is just like a muscle: use it and build it up.
Creativity has really nothing to do with talent. I'm not sure what the heck "talent" is. I think it may be desire. Here is a piece of an email I received from a new facebook friend:


"I have absolutely no experience in art. When I was about 8 or so I begged to go to an art day camp and it was disastrous. The teacher told me I'd never be an artist because I couldn't "get" perspective, ... etc. I was 8!  I've always been easily discouraged and painfully sensitive to criticism ... . I'm 59 years old now and finally jumping in. I've always felt as if I've been deprived of something very special--like I got all the desire to be creative, but none of the talent. But, now I do have a lot of confidence. I know that I can do it as long as I take things slowly and stop each day before I get frustrated."
Thank you Xylia for sharing this with me. 


Xylia's words spoke so triumphantly to me. How about you? My life path was not strewn with roses, I had to win back my innate creativity. This is why I blog and teach. To support your own quest to reclaim your creativity.

So right here, right now I'm startin' the 

Creative Revolution 

I'm not completely sure what kind of path this will take yet. For the moment, once a month, on or about the 15th, I will set out an idea. It could be anything: a simple journal entry (see below), a recipe prompt, a nudge to be more creative when you get dressed in the morning. These nudges will be simple, 5-minute (or more, if you'd like). They will be something that can very easily be incorporated into your day.

I'll set up a Flickr group for you to respond to these prompts (as soon as I can figure out a good name for the group, any ideas?).  

Here is the first Nudge: a journal prompt:  

Take a handful of fabric or paper scraps, a glue stick or double stick tape and your journal.

Play and arrange and then, here's the scary part: stick 'em down.

That's it. Go on! What are you waiting for? Stand up, walk away from the computer. If you 

are at work, take 5 and scoot around, look for paper scraps, paperclip them together and get 

them glued down when you get home. Skedaddle!

Your input, as always is welcome! Got an idea, leave a comment.

Journal Junkies Workshop

The style of art journaling presented in The Journal Junkies Workshop by Eric M. Scott and David R. Modler has a strong graphic element that I really like. This is not the way I naturally work so it has been a bit of a stretch for me and I'm seeing elements of it creeping into my journals. I say, yeah! and thank you for expanding my visual vocab!

I picked the above journal page to illustrate this book review for two reasons:
* I'm so danged happy that I put an arrow on that page!
* I used a sharpie to write (very un-Diana-like)
* oh make that 3 reasons ... I'll probably come back to this page and add something more.

The Journal Junkies credit the work of Dan Eldon as their inspirational jumping off point. If you don't know Dan's work and life story, here it is. He lived large in a short period of time.

Back to the book, these two guys gave me some great ideas for using watercolors and watersoluble media that are inspiring me. I like their examples for using text, stencils and tracing. I'm enjoying their prompt section very much. There is not a single beautiful vintage-looking girl in sight; instead think: sharpies and lettering and stencils. Sharpies and lettering were not a "go-to" for me and it's exciting to work with these new elements.

I like opening this book randomly for an bit of inspiration. I think the visuals here are very appealing to teens, twenty-somethings and guys. And let's face it: most of what is out there in the art journaling world has been largely aimed at women so this is very refreshing.

One of the things I look for in craft and art books is the aesthetic. I've been around for a while so it's hard to spring new techniques on me. But great new ways to present the techniques is something that draws me in for a second (and more) look. I'm excited when I see something different.

{notes on my journal page}
I photocopied some fabrics recently and have been using them in my collages and journals. This page was originally a bunch of doodles and I stuck a piece of the fabric copy on top.
Gesso.
Pencil doodles.
Portfolios smooshed in.
Writing on paper glued in
Flower on book paper glued in.

Sumi Smoosh Tutorial

Wooooo ! It's time for the Tute Tsunami with Art Sparks.

My Sumi Smoosh with Vellum tute is below. I've also uploaded YouTube vids: Part 1 and Part 2.

Here is Melly Testa's tute on hand dyeing from her book Inspired to Quilt and here is Jane Lafazio's tute on Needle Felting. Next up: Lyric Kinard and Alisa Burke. I'll have their links up Thursday!

Sumi Smoosh with Vellum let's get to it!

Supply List
White Vellum Paper
Plaste folder, or sheet that you can fold
Inks: 2 colors and a metallic (or what you have on hand)
Spray bottles (1 per color, I use Ranger's Mini-Misters)
   if you don't have the spray bottles you can just drop some ink onto the plastic sheet
Brayer (or just rub your hand over the plastic to move it around)
Water
RUBBER GLOVES!
If desired and at hand:
alcohol
needle and thread
tape

One of my students named this technique and it stuck. Great name: sumi is the Japanese word for ink.

First open up your plastic folder (clear plastic)
and drop or spray some inks in like so:

Now, close the plastic folder and rub or brayer the ink around, like this

Open up the plastic folder and lay your vellum in on the right hand side, like so:

Close up the plastic and brayer again. Open it, and voila!

There is always plenty of ink left over on the plastic sheets. So do it again. You can make more marks on the paper with stamps by picking up some of the leftover ink. Shown below are roller stamps made with double stick craft foam and wallpaper seam rollers. 

While the ink is wet, and the paper is still on the plastic, try spraying with alcohol or dropping alcohol. That's a neat resist. I love to fold the vellum paper and create a creased pattern that will accept the ink in a different way. You could also crease the vellum after it is dry. You could try other resists as well.
Here: I used one of the pages in my journal. I sewed it in at the top of the page (could have stapled, taped, brad-ed, eyelet-ed, paperclipped). I used a Black Sharpie and a White Sharpie here as well as washi tape from Pretty Tape on Etsy.

Yes, very important to give directions on your journal page, right? Or perhaps, I'd have forgotten ...

Here's a close up of the sewing bit (bottom right)

I hope you will enjoy this simple technique. Let me know if you try it out. I'm looking forward to seeing Melly's and Jane's tutes. There are more coming every day for the rest of the week! Fun, right?

Journal Play

{Playfulness} make some creatures.

Random Art Journal Video

Trying to escape into my imaginary world. Real world keeps barging in these days.

Transient Journaling: a basic journaling kit

I'm organizing a Journal Meet at Art & Soul Hampton on Friday, May 1. 7 pm, in classroom next to Collage. There were some questions about what is in a Basic Journaling Kit. Here are some answers!

First: a container. Look what I found at the craft store marked 50% off! It's an Amy Butler bag! Very good size for carrying my journaling stuff around the house, yard, to the coffee shop and to my friend Susan's house. Why do I bring my stuff to Susan's? I just wind up playing with her stuff. Somebody else's stuff is always so much fun, right?

Back on topic: this bag is very convenient. I've filled it with scissors, gluestick, some sort of coloring stuff (e.g., portfolios, caran d'ache or watersoluble colored pencils). I always bring my watercolors, a mister, a couple of water brushes and a small jar of water (spice jar sized). A couple of paper towels, a pen (or two) a pencil and my journal. I usually have some odds and ends tucked in there too. Like a rubber stamp and ink pad. Just in case. It's nice having everything packed and ready to roll.

You don't need this Amy Butler bag to pack a journaling kit. Any bag, box or basket will do.
Fill your chosen vessel with the tools you use every time you journal and you're always ready to go.