Pursuing My Passions - Art Journaling

This is part one in what will likely be a four(?) part blog series about my passions and how I'm pursuing them this year.  I'm doing this as much to get it all organized and straight in my own mind as to share with you what I've been up to lately and why I've been so absent from blogging. So here goes...

I ADORE Art Journaling and Mixed Media.

In fact, when it comes to tactile arts and getting messy this fills my happy well far more than scrapbooking ever did. It still involves cutting and pasting but it adds painting and collaging and making glorious messes.  Not to worry, scrapbooking is still a huge part of my life, just in a different way.

So, Cheri, what are you doing this year to pursue your Art Journaling? Well, thanks for asking!

I've got two classes on tap this year.

First is the Documented Life Project.  It is a weekly prompt class with limited technique instruction via guest bloggers. It has the advantage of being FREE! Free is a really nice price.

Last year DLP was done in a moleskine weekly planner.  This year they've ditched the planner in favor of the large Dyan Reaveley Creative Journal. The prompts are geared to straight art journaling, not to documenting a week of your life planner style. I have a very small (3.5" x 6") weekly planner that I carry in my purse for keeping track of appointments. I've decided to add some tiny little bits of life (tickets, receipts, stamps, product wrappers, etc.) and maybe some washi tape and doodling to that little book. Just for fun.

The Creative Journal has the advantage of nice thick pages that hold up well to most media. It has the disadvantage of having a LOT of space to fill (a two page spread is roughly 18" wide by 12" high)!  I've been leaving it out on my art table and adding layers every time I have ten or fifteen free minutes.

We are six weeks and six prompts into the DLP year and I've only completed three spreads. Here they are:

Week One - the prompt was "book paper" and the theme was "Be your own goal keeper". Since my goals for the year are so intimately connected to my One Little Word "Thrive" I chose to use that quote for my page.

Week Three prompt "Color Wheel" and the quote provided as the theme. I started with a dark wash of colors (quite by accident because the medium I was using did not do what I thought it would), but then dry whitewashed it all with gesso, very purposefully making sure there were lots of scratchy brush strokes visible. My very loosely interpreted "color wheel" is created with magazine clippings of flowers and color swatches.

Week Two's prompt "Gesso" and theme "Beginning". I started with a coat of gesso, then added Tim Holtz distress stamp pads in a watercolor style blending mode. Spritzes of water create a mottled look. Some stenciling... and then ... I created the roses all around the edges using the bottom of a bunch of celery as a stamp, painted with acrylic paints.

Work got so busy at the end of January, I didn't do the week 4 and 5 prompts. I'm choosing to skip them. I'm working on week 6. While I am striving to keep up with the class, I am not worried about doing a page every single week. If I average 3 spreads a month by the end of the year, I'll be very happy!

My second class is Artfully Inspired Life 2015 with Joanne Sharpe. This class is also set up to create a year long art journal. Lessons are posted once a month to create four weekly pages around a monthly theme. The cost is $59 for the entire year. What is being "taught" is whimsical lettering styles, something I've been wanting to learn.

After viewing the January class material, I chose not to create the actual journal for the class. Joanne has the entire year mapped out with what goes on every page of the journal. Part of January's assignment was to create the table of contents page and number all of the weekly pages. That felt too restrictive for me - I have this terrible habit of wanting to make every project my own! Instead, I'm simply going to incorporate techniques I learn in this class into my DLP journal.  For example, the lettering in the third spread above is my take on the February calligraphy exercise, using calligraphy markers.

So that's how I'll be pursuing my passion for Art Journaling in 2015.  Do you art journal? How do you devote time for it in your busy life?