Raw Art Journal: the Elephant in the Room

 It has been a while that I have uploaded the new pages from my Art journal. The last few weeks I am busy with drawing and sketching, trying to develop a new habit and enjoy a bit of uncomplicated creativity every day.
And yes, I certainly need to brush up those drawing skills as well... :-) So that is a bonus as well!

This page is about "the elephant in the room". Something so obvious - there is no way you can't overlook an elephant in your room, can you - and the habit of ignoring it all together.

I have noticed the hard way that there are things that you get so used to, but are not really regarded as 'normal'. You just think it is 'normal' cause you are so used to it for many, many years. It has become a part of your life. It has become normal for me to have that elephant sitting in my room.

But it is not normal. Absolutely not. And I have to see that elephant for what it is: an elephant. Something so big that I can't overlook it. Eventhough it is sometimes hard to acknowledge it. I need to recognise that elephant, knowing that even if I don't speak about it, or are not allowed to speak about it, it is still there.
Undeniable, obvious and present. This page will help me to remember that...

So the question for you is, how many elephants are there in your room? Are there things in your life that you'd rather not speak about? Do you have the courage to acknowledge them and start a converstation about it? Or do you just ignore it?

Art Journal: Wordgames

This page came together pretty quickly. I had just cut away a rosebush that seemed to be sick for several years now, never producing beautiful flowers. It tried, but the roses got dried out or just brown before opening up. And after all these years I felt it was time to give up on that rosebush. So out came the saw to cut through the thick branches.

By trying to cut them in smaller pieces so that they would fit in the green bin, I hurt my fingers several times, despite the gardening gloves and me trying to handle the branches as careful as I could.
When all the work was done, I got my symbols, I got my words and I expressed it all together in this page.

I took a picture of the branches that were cut and glued it on the page. Outlined it with a marker and made it blend in with the background. For that purpose I like to tear the paper of images so that the blending in is easier.

It was way too graphic, and looking for a solution by rummaging through some textured stuff, I came across a sample of textured wallpaper. Just some brushing on of undiluted acrylic paint and you have a wonderful stamp!
The words that were hanging in my mind for the past days, were stamped on an old book page, a part came from the title of the book itself.
Then it only needed some borders and letter stamps to strengthen the words: the wordgames that were such a destructive part of my life and which are now - just like the rosebush - cut away and put away.
Such a relief!

The way such a page comes together is a process on its own. There are some things that you want out, want to express and then there is Life which helps you to tie together the emotion, the feelings, the symbolic imagery and the words. There is no particular order in this process. There are just elements that keeps lingering in your mind and finally it all comes together.
All expressed, on just one little page with some extra symbolic meaning added to the mix as well... I love art journaling:  this way of expressing yourself with simple things like paper, paints, stamps and a wall paper sample!

Raw Journal: Just More of the Same

Somehow this page seems to be a newer version of a similar page from my Little Red Book:
http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-pages-from-little-red-book-part-6.html
which says:

"This too was on repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat for a long time."

Though this time this new page was made based on an observation from someone else which I needed to write down because of the new meaning that was given.

I guess that despite all the things in life that changes and all the actions you undertake to make changes, some things will just never, ever change. No matter what you do, how much you try to turn it inside out and upside down, it just won't change. It kind of feels like moving a mountain with your bare hands.

The question is, will the mountain defeat you or do you accept it? Can you work with it, around it,  or is ignoring the mountain an option? In my case, ignoring it might be the best strategy for now...
And this all leads to another question: how many mountains are there in my life? Something to think about!

The meaning of circles?

Working in an art journal can be quite a coincedence of things that play in my mind, objects that surround me, things that I have heard, sentences that were spoken. I start with a simple thing like painting a background and from there a chain of choices are made.

There were foam circles on my worktable that I wanted to glue on wood to use as a stamp. But I had no small pieces of wood around, so I glued the circles unto a piece of cardboard instead. The life time of that stamp is of course short - no cleaning possible - but at least I had some dots to stamp with.

But the glue had to dry thoroughly before I could use it, so I turned to an empty paper roll to use as a stamp. It gave me great circles to colour in with pencils. From there, the idea started to flow. Though I did change my mind several times. I repainted the background white, part of it in purple red. I started to draw lines.

And before I glued the text to the page, I used the newly made stamp to stamp white circles all over the page. In the middle of that process I remembered that the circle is the symbol of Soul and that this page had a lot of circles...

Sometimes you need less words

A page that turned out to be full of symbolic meaning to me. Though the text is clear, there is a lot of fog into the page as well. I had glued in some text and after several days, I teared these away. It was saying too much, I needed less words on this page.

The little Russian dolls are symbolic for the many layers we have inside of us. And the little line of text: "Through the Chaos, Objects appear Fresh"? I guess that was meant as a wish!

Art Journal: The Bridge

I found this picture lying around in a drawer which I really needed to clear out. No need to say that the drawer was left in the same state and I started to lay out the photograph on the different backgrounds of my art journal.
Nothing seemed to work at that time though, and the picture found its place on my worktable for several weeks.

That is the reason why clearing worktables is such an inspirational activity: you come across things that you wanted to use, but still hasn't. It is fun to rediscover these little treasures under a pile of papers after a few weeks!

So when I refound (a new word) the photograph, I cut away the background, sanded the water and added gesso over it, blending it with my fingers. The text was something I wanted to work into a collage for a long time, so that was easy.
Just a line of poetry to finish it off.

How many bridges do you need in your life's journey? Do you cross the wild waters by foot and get wet, maybe even go under for a while, or do you first build a bridge?
How many times have you turned around and taken another path in the hope that it will lead you to a safer place to cross these rivers?

Page from Raw Art Journal

This little format of wired book is wonderful to work in. Though I seem to be unable to paint on a small scale, for art journaling this size works wonders for me. This is my second art journal called "Raw". The first one was the Little Red Book which I already filled up completely.
ReBuild and ReInvent is the theme for this page. Accompanied with a cheerful picture.

And I love Found Poetry, the messages that underline my intention of the page. This one: "Move, to get free".
Moving, or taking action is the only way to change things. Just watch the news: Egyptians caused the biggest change in their history by taking action. Libia is undergoing their change by the movement, the action, of people who no longer accept life as it used to be.

Though we might not be in need of a revolution, we do need to move once in the while to stir up a change in life and get ahead.

The Ingredients of Life

What would happen if you change the ingredients of your life? Would life still be, look, taste and feel the same - because the main ingredient is still the undeniable You?
Or would life become different? How much do you have to change to achieve the difference? And do you have to change just one or two ingredients, or do you change the recipe all together as well?

Loads of questions that emerged in my mind as I looked at this old recipe and wondered if the cake would taste as good as it did in the Fifties. And then started to compare Life with the cake in the picture.... :-)
I am still trying to find the answers to all these questions and I am glad that I made this page with the picture of the cake!

Do you stick to your default recipe of Life? Or do you make changes? How far do you go? Have you ever switched back to the old recipe?

A New Art Journal: Raw

 My Little Red Book has been completely filled. It was time to start to look around for a replacement. I loved working on the small pages ( 16 cm x 16 cm) of that little book. Luckily I had another version of that diary lying around and could not resist using that as a successor of the Little Red Book.

So there I went: tearing pages out, glueing several pages together to improve the strength of the pages and adding a layer of gesso over the page to hide the text underneath it.

I had noticed while working in the Little Red Book, that somehow I lost the idea of making the pages pretty or beautiful. Instead of artfully decorated pages, it soon became all about the thoughts, feelings and ideas that I wanted to express on the page. It was kind of raw, with everything on the page enhancing the mood of my expression with no regards toward art or rules of art.

Since I loved that feeling, I decided to work in the same way in this new book. Expressing myself in a free, raw way and leaving it up to the viewer to interpret the page and decide on  her/his own interpretation.

This way of working gives me a lot of freedom and helps me to express myself without the restriction of bearing my soul to the world of internet. You might understand what I am saying, or you may not understand it at all.
Maybe you discover a different meaning of the page, or maybe it stirs up your soul. Or maybe it does not say anything to you at all (and you get ideas on how to improve such a page).
Whatever it is that you feel while looking at it, I hope that it inspires you on some level. :-)

Tutorial: using existing books as a journal

TJ from Studio Mailbox sent me this book a while ago for me to alter. I am planning to use it as an art journal and thought it would be fun to share the preparing of the book here with you.

This book had hard covers and a sewn binding: ideal for altering the book. The paper inside is a bit old, but not yellow or brittle at all. This means that I have the perfect base to start with.

To make room for all the painting and collage, I rip out several pages so that the binding will be able to hold all the extra weight that will be added.

Sometimes, I will tear out as much as half of the amount of pages that are in the book!
After tearing out a page, look for the opposite page that is now loose in the book. Remove this one too.

It always feels a bit wrong to tear out pages, but the spine will not hold long if you are not brutal enough at this point.
You can save the pages and illustrations though for collage. And you can always use the text for Found Poetry.

The next step is glueing several pages together to strengthen the paper. This way it will be able to carry all the paint and collage even better.
In this book I will glue 2 pages together. If the paper was thinner, I would even glue 3 pages together.

My favorite glue to use at this point is Gel Medium, you can buy these in big cheap(er) pots in art stores.

Place a waste paper behind the page that you are going to glue. Brush the glue on, press the other page to it and use a plastic old ID or credit card to smooth it over.

 Let the book dry completely. As long as the glue has not dried, it will be too fragile to work in.

My favorite way to prep a page is to start with a thin layer of gesso. Just the process of brushing this over the pages is relaxing and often opens up my ideas and inspire me.

The cover is almost always left as the last thing to do. When the journal has been filled, I know what I want to put on front. It is all about keeping open to possibilities, though you could say that it is all about not being able to make a choice as well... :-)

Have you been using existing books as an art journal? Or do you buy blank books for journaling?

More Labels to Print

While collecting materials to make an art journal from scraps, I decided that I needed longer labels than I had already made. So here is a collection of 8 different labels for you to download from 4Shared.com and to print at home.

The pack contains 4 different coloured PNG files (black, blue, red and green). Here is a preview of the blue labels.

You can print them with your own printer on cardstock and cut them out by hand. It is not really that much work since there are lot of straight lines involved!

Vary the colour of the cardstock and your labels will get a different feel and look. I like to print them on a yellowish cardstock which give it a slight vintage feel.

As usual, the zipped file has to be downloaded from 4Shared.com. It is safe to download files from that site, as long as you click the right buttons! The buttons of ads can be very confusing, think before you click. So don't think you have to download something else first - or have you PC checked for errors!

After the first click you will have to wait several seconds before you get the real download link. So there is some patience involved, but then again, the labels and the download service are for free. :-)

Here is the download link:
LabelsLong.zip

You are free to use these labels in your personal and commercial projects. You are just not allowed to sell the file, or the prints of the file. You can share the blogpost here, but you can't put the link on your own website/blog/facebook page etc. and claim them as your own.

This means that you can use the labels to glue on a jar of jam to sell, but you just can't sell a set of prints of the labels.

I would love to see what you do with these labels!

My wish for this summer

One of the prompts from the class In The Sun was making a page about the songs that you love to hear in the summer.
Despite the rain and the wind, the feeling of summer comes back to me if I watch James Blunt's video with "Stay the night". Happy and upbeat: Simon Webbe, a summer should be without any worries.
I like Bruno Mars' song because it is full of energy. Oh, and what is a summer without a song in Italian? That is not really summer!

Another prompt from the class was to write down your wishes for the summer. I made this page this week, and eventhough I have not seen or experienced much of these things up untill now, I will still keep on hoping!

I like the simplicity of using lists for a journal page. And, as the previous pages, I did things that I normally don't do. Just working quickly, keeping it light and just accept the results as they are. Even using a silly picture and ruining it with using the red crayons around it.
It is summer after all... :-)

In the Sun journal pages

One of the first prompts, I think back in June, was making a page of your purpose and intention of this art journal.
The main thing that I want to achieve is this feeling of 'anything goes' and experiment without restrictions. This became a 'cute' page! And I normally don't do cute!

Another prompt was about making a self portrait and writing down several things that make up you. I did not put a lot of thought into the list. I just wrote some things down about me. Another thing that I hardly have done: using my own handwriting in my art journals.  But this is something I like to experiment with these last weeks of summer.

Working quickly, no overthinking - or hardly thinking - and keeping it simple feels so much like fun. I am not over the moon about these pages, I just want to let the flow goes where it takes me, and enjoy the process of making a quick page in the mean time.

Time keeps on running...

The month of July has passed away so quickly. It has been the wettest month since ages and felt more like autumn than summer. I missed that summer-kind-of-feeling.

In the beginning of July I had read about the art journaling workshop: In the Sun by Natalie Malik.

The whole project sounded so much like summer to me that I wanted to give it a try, even though I was already a few days behind.
On one of the dry mornings in July I went outside and ink sprayed a bunch of pre cut pages using the simple dot stencil that I made from punching out the Round Tags  (Blogpost with instructions ) and lettering stencils.

To keep that airy feeling of summer, I kept the use of colours to a minimum, and only used light coloured inks.
My intention was to keep this journal as light and simple as possible. Giving myself lots of space to experiment, or to use the same materials and techniques. Just go along with a summer-kind-of-flow.
And then, Life happened.

So now, a month later, I cleaned my desk and found these pages again. The cover was already made, and so were two pages. When I checked the class blog I saw that I was so much behind. No way that I would be able to catch up in any way.

Instead of trying to catch up, I am giving myself permission to just pick out the prompts that I like and go ahead anyway. It is summer, after all!

Here is the cover that I made several weeks ago. I will upload the other pages the coming week as well.

Free Round Alphabeth Tags to Print

I had fun cutting the printable labels (see post here: http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2011/06/sharing-my-printable-labels-for.html ) and thought about other items that I could design and print out to us in the scrappy journal I am planning to make.
Pretty soon the idea of 'something round' came up. And since I wanted to punch it out with my 1.5 " puncher, I knew the size to start with.

I wanted to add numbers to the circles, but thought it would be fun to have the complete alphabeth in circles. I started to work out the idea in CorelDraw but switched quickly to Photoshop.
The idea was simple: a scalloped border, a border inside and a quirky font to use as letters.
Most of the time was spent adding and adjusting the size of the individual characters within the circles and placing them neatly in rows in 2 files that could be printed on A4 size and Letter size paper.

I printed the tags on a yellowish cardstock. After printing, it was just a matter of turning the punch upside down and postioning the paper so that the tag would fit in.
If you don't have a puncher, cut them out with scissors. It might take a longer time, but it is worth the effort.

When the tags were punched out, I had these strips of paper with these huge circles - just like a stencil.
This inspired me to tape the strips back together and brushing a layer of acrylic paint on both sides: to strengthen the stencil.
I love it when one idea evolves into another new idea.

The files are free for you to use in your personal and commercial projects. However, you can't sell the tags or claim them as your own.
Please do not share the files - you may mention this post on your own blog though for your readers to download the files for themselves.

Here is the download link on 4Shared.com:

AlphabethTags.zip

You don't need an account to download this file. Press the button to download this file, a count down will start - ignore all the ads. After the countdown another download button will appear. Press this one to start downloading.

OK, the next idea I came up with is printable journalers and ledgers.
Do you have any special requests for printables? Just leave a comment with your ideas!

More from the Red Book

The last pages of the Little Red Book have been filled but I had not uploaded these yet. This is a simple page with a strong message. I was reminded of the statement that Dr. Phil made: no matter how flat you make the pancake, there are always two sides.
Yes, there are always two sides of a story. So when you have heard one side, don't judge untill you have heard the other side as well - you might be surprised when you hear the whole and true story.

I used a self portrait that I combined with watercolour paintings in Photoshop. The text was found in a magazine. The background was acrylic paint and I added pencils to get more texture, but this is not visible in the picture.

Little Guide Book: Anytime, Anything

Another spread that I made last week in my Little Guide Book. This idea, the title, came up when last week something happened which I did not expected. I was glad with the change that it caused, Up untill then I felt that everything was going in the same direction, but now some things seem to be heading into a different and better direction.

As usual I used chipboard letters to trace the title and stamped the rest of it. Journaling was written with the Tria Markers and Portfolio crayons were used to colour the edges of the pages.
It turns out that in this book, it is not so much about art after all. It is the words that count. I love to go through this book and read what I have written so far, all these little guiding words and phrases begin to mean a lot to me. Comforting, encouraging and always uplifting. This is definitly a different kind of art journal that I have ever made.

There are still 4 empty spreads left. In the beginning I was so eager with filling the pages, now I have the feeling that I should be a bit selective about what I want to put into these last precious pages. :)

Little Guide Book: Speak Up

The Little Guide Book still has some empty spreads left. I would like to fill the book and start working on the cover. Complete the book, complete this project and enjoy the content. But on the other end, I don't want to rush and put things in the book I might regret later, or things that are not so real and authentic at this moment in my life. I love the sincerity of this book, it is becoming more valueable with every spread that I am making. Not just for this year, but probably for many years to come.
So I need to be more patient and wait to see what comes up and inspires me to fill these last pages.

This spread is about me daring to speak up, letting my voice be heard. Stop hiding in this little corner of life and silencing myself.
There is no need to keep up the silence. I do have a voice. I do have the right to speak up and defend myself. And it is never too late to start.

Overview of Glue Art Journal

I was cleaning up some stuff and came across this little art journal that I made over a year ago. It is only one single signature and sewn it together with a pamphlet stitch.
The cover was sewn in together with the pages, and I used a heavy watercolour paper for this.

This journal is a bit different than the others that I made. Except for one page, I stuck to just scraps of paper and some journaling. In Holland we have this magazine Flow which has lots of eyecandy, and I just tore of part of pages to glue into the journal. I also used images from Happinez as 'focal' images.
All I had to do then, was to add my journaling. I prefer to use the old Pantone Tria Markers for that.

So I only used paper, glue and markers. Not my normal way of working. It felt restricted in some way because I could only use the scraps of paper and stayed away from my favorite gesso and acrylic paints! OK, I cheated by painting the covers with watered down acrylics - it is hard to kick a habit. :-)
I am not sure if I like to make another book like this. Though I might do it again, just to challenge myself a bit!

Instead of putting the pictures on the blog, I decided that I needed a video. I used my photographs and compiled these in the video. I am still working out how to work with the software. Especially setting the size and exporting it to the right file format is something I have not found out yet. Trying to convert it to a YouTube video made the software crash. Vimeo made it all easier though!

Little Guide Book: Thoughts

The mind is so powerful and creative. Thoughts will come and go. Too bad that often the most negative thoughts hang around much longer than the positive and uplifting kind of thoughts. And the longer they wander around in our mind, the more real they become.
And the question is: how real are these thoughts? Are they really true? Or are they made up?

It has been several months ago that I made this spread, I think it was back in February or so . This piece of advice was inspired by a YouTube video that I watched from Tolle Eckhart. It is funny since there is something about this man, how wise he is though, which annoys me immensly! But this is one lesson I would like to be reminded of.

Watered down acrylics were used for the background, which give it allmost a water colour look.  I added a row of cut out circles at the bottom of the spread. Used an ink pad to define the borders of the pages. With chip board letters I laid out my main title and used Tria Markers to trace and colour them.
I stamped the other text on a strip of painted scrappaper. Gesso was rubbed along the edges of the picture from a magazine and my own journaling on the page was written with the fine point of a Tria Marker.