Journaling in January - Day 27

"Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise
will sooner or later have to find time for illness."
~Edward Stanley

A very fast page done just before sleeping. I have been thinking how unfit and inflexible I became. I sit in the car, work 8 hours sitting in front of a computer, then go back home and excluding some chores (where I have to stand) sit some more... before I lie down to sleep. I used to be very active and would like to bring that back to my days. Tomorrow my brand new, shiny and beautiful treadmill will arrive!!!!! I am going to play games and bribe myself to use it. Feeling more fit already! xo

Journaling in January - Day 26

Misty is expressing her emotions on journal pages this week.  I'm joining in... more open than I usually do. What came out yesterday were questions... Many people know exactly what they like. Not me. It is starting to bother me that I don't know what my favorite color, movie, book, food, style is... You would think I am solving the world's crisis or something like that when I think about what is my favorite anything. Maybe I should spend the time answering to questions and getting to know myself. Wouldn't that be an interesting theme for a journal?

Playing with crayons

I admit that I cheated. I don't have Crayola crayons, so I used my water soluble ones. You will see on the following photo how using the crayons looked. Horrible! I guess the very textured paper in my journal is not a good combination with crayons. At least - that's my excuse. I added gesso and color pencils and I think it looks better that way. Still very silly... it definitely brough the child in me.

Word

Everything is something you decide to do.

I messed up the words completely... but it can be corrected. As many bloggers, I chose a word for this year. I really wanted to snap Sharon's EXPECT, but there was another word stuck in my mind. It is 'choice'... as in - I want to be aware that everything I do, think, dream is a choice. Even when it doesn't seem like - it is... I guess I have to choose what to expect in order to expect it....

Fabric, embelishments...

Challenge for today was - embellishments. buttons, beads, fabric added to the page. I started by painting a face on a piece of canvas. My plan was to add it to the journal (either by sewing it to the paper page or attaching it with eyelets). After I painted it, it felt like cheating... like I didn't challenge myself at all. So, down came the boxes with fabric and ribbons and "stuff". It has been a long time since I made anything with fabric. I pulled my machine (that lives under the table), decided that the gold colored thread is perfect and started piecing it together. Unfortunately, the day is slowly coming to an end and I can't finish it. But it was really fun.... I'm not sure if I want to finish it as a wall hanging, art pillow or some kind of bag; but I'll show it when it's done.

Pink

Yellow

I saw the idea for the silhouette filled with text on one wonderful blog and knew that I'll have to try it myself. Unfortunately, I can't remember which blog so I can't give proper thanks.
It reminded me of the shadows that Sharon and I were playing with and the lovely day we spent driving around San Francisco. We had to go up, up, up the very steep streets (can you say steep streets?)... You can see that Sharon was too afraid to look forward:
To be completely honest - I don't like those streets either. Specially when you have to stop and start many times. My husband was driving and this is how I was taking pictures of Sharon:
Laughing at our silliness, but with my eyes completely shut. We had to go up in order to see this:

and this:

We took photos of our shadows:

And later played with them in our little books:

That was a very wonderful day. (miss you)

Not yellow

Working on a yellow page.

Red

Interesting things start happening when you make the time to paint every day. I started by painting the page with black gesso. I don't know why. I don't even remember when it was the last time I used it (the poor thing became very thick, it wasn't easy to get it out of the bottle). I left the black showing through and enjoyed scratching through layers. We'll play with yellow tomorrow.

White

If you know my art, you know that I use color a lot. Strong, often very saturated color. And as much as I admire Misty's use of white - I don't know how to do it. Not that I'm unhappy with today's page, it's just that if I had time I would do it differently.

I started by painting a regular, strong-colored painting (as you can see in the following photo).
Then I added layers of different whites (acrylics, inks, stencils, stamps...). I think that when I try it next time, I will try using different tones of white and some color for the contrast. That will be interesting. I'm curious to see how others interpreted today's challenge. You can see the pages here.

Green

It was whispered
That grass would be growing soon
And that flowers would bloom again.

P.S. Thank you for the compliments on my new banner. I didn't think anyone will notice it, because never know when people change their blog banners (I read blogs in google reader and it doesn't show blog templates). Thanks again!

Orange

Blue

I'm not feeling blue today. Just following Misty's prompt to paint monochromatic pages. Another interesting challenge that will hopefully make me step out of my comfort zone.

Day 11

My extra very messy table. The rest of the room looks pretty much the same. Try and find my journal and my collage self-portrait. I'll clean the table/room tomorrow so that I can continue to play.

Day 10

I skipped a day... Too much work at work, long hours... all I could do last evening was to watch a movie and go to sleep early. Today I continue journaling, following Misty's self-portrait week.This is so difficult! And interesting. And challenging. I searched for a photo that doesn't have me looking straight into the camera and stopped at this one:
And while I tried to paint it (don't I look mean in the painting?), I went back in my mind to early May last year and remembered the lovely, long weekend that my dh and gifted to ourselves. I had to go back and look at other photos and couldn't stop before I made this little collage. Now I think I will go and carve a little stamp. Hope your weekend is going well! xo

Day 8

She needed to be surrounded by beauty.

Would you believe that I looked at myself in the mirror while painting this... She looks NOTHING like me, which speaks volumes about my skills. But I did paint what I was thinking about and how I was feeling. I could hardly wait to get home from work today. For some reason sitting in a not-very-pretty space with no windows made me feel constricted and angry. I didn't have a plan for the painting - the white flowers showed up, and I even added some tiny glitter and the world was better when I finished painting it.

Day 7

Hana says I look like I have 'grillz' (in the painting, not the photo). Very funny!I wanted to hide the page I created today, but I won't. I find paintings that show faces with teeth weird and sometimes creepy. So what possessed me to try it, I don't know. It was an ambitious try, and I guess I was feeling brave. Maybe because this is one of the rare photos of myself that I can tolerate (I don't mind the big nose, chin(s), crazy hair and all the other things I always see). Sharon took this picture the evening we painted together for the first time.
I showed her how I paint roses (and she got it immediately), and then she demoed one of the ways she paints faces. I was feeling insecure in the beginning but she has a very special way to get rid of the fear and creative inhibitions. It is funny and loud and scared my husband, so he came to check on us. He also brought glasses of wine (which helped too).
I think we went to sleep at 2:30 am that night.... and I remember that I wanted to write down the things she showed me because I knew that I will forget them. And I did... But I can't forget how fun it was to laugh and talk and paint together. And now I have a weird journal page that will help me remember it even more.

Day 6

I couldn't even try a self-portrait in my journal today because I could think only of our cat. Bart is the world's most perfect cat (you can read a whole blog post Sharon wrote about him here).
I wish my pages would look 'artistic' no matter what my subject is... but sometimes they don't. They look like a child made them. Not really what I wanted but I don't know how to fix it. Oh well....

Day 5. Being open.

This page has the kind of texture that I enjoy. I painted on top of light molding paste, and also stamped onto it while it was wet. The words on the stamp didn't show up (I should have guessed that before I tried) but I still liked the impression so I left them. BTW - I received the very cool stamp with my name from my bbff.

Day 4

I wish I could sleep like I did when I was a child.

That's my thought of the day. I left my alarm clock on by mistake and it screamed at 5:30 a.m. It's not fun getting up that early on a Sunday. I feel like I don't sleep as deep as when I was a kid. It's like swimming on the surface of the water... any little thing wakes me up. Why is it? I don't know. But I created this journal page in hopes that it will make me sleep deeper and dream something nice this night.

Texas in California part 2

Saturday and Sunday mornings always begin the same way in our home - making and drinking a vegetable juice. It is a ritual that I'm happy to say even my kids enjoy. At first they were not happy with the thought that they are drinking carrot/celery/broccoli/beet juice but after they tried it they realized that the taste is wonderful (because I also put apples, grapes, pomegranates in it). Anyway, that was what I offered Sharon the first morning she woke up in our home. You can see by her pretty smile that my beet juice was good. It gave us super powers for the day too.
But that was not all. On regular days I make green smoothies, because they are faster and easier to create and give super powers too. I just love to see the reaction people have when they hold a bright green drink in their hand. Of course, my dear guest was no exeption. I eased her into it, making the most delicious smoothie from bananas, peaches, spinach, and almond milk. I added a few dates to make it super sweet too.
Don't you love the how her eyes tell the story? At first she was unsure... but quickly her face lit up and we enjoyed green drinks every day. Of course, I didn't expect a different reaction. First because it is taste, second - because Sharon does not fear anything. Make her tell you how she caught a shark! She really did.
There are so many things I want to show... They will wait for some other post, because I have to go and pretend that I'm in pain. WHY?
I cut my finger while preparing juice this morning. My husband got a knife sharpener from Santa and he is on a mission to have the sharpest knives on the planet. Now I'll go and make sad faces showing my poor finger so that he will suffer and be extra cuddly today.

Day 3

Day 2

One of the things I saw our dear Norah do is - not waste any paint. If there is paint left on the paintbrush - she doesn't swirl it in the water - she paints it somewhere... Following what she does, I used the ink that was left when I finished yesterday's page. I took a little sponge and swiped it over the next page in the journal. Today I saw that the 'negative space' looked like a profile. And I allowed it to 'be'... tiny nose and all. That's why I wrote "I saw something where there was nothing and a face emerged".

Art journaling in January

Here is a treat for everyone - Misty Mawn is going to journal daily in January and post the pages on her blog. Click on the link to see her first page. Can you imagine creating art like that in a journal? What a wonderful way to start the year! Everyone is invited to join. I will try to do a page every day, even if I have to use shortcuts and make the simplest entries in my journal.HAPPY NEW YEAR!