The way I moved around this page was very quick and fragmented - head here - leg there. Some things (like a figure on the very top_ came in one piece. Others were completed in several parts. I think using this pre-painted background makes this page a little more interesting for me to work through by providing some hint in composition. Sometimes I make these pre-painted pages as a way to get through a sketching block. And sometimes these backgrounds make me work in a new way and help with the same thing - try them out! :)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
It's Time To Celebrate Spring!
Not only is Spring finally getting underway, the Spring Schedule for Imaginary Trips has been posted!
We'll be going on "An Imaginary Visit to the Garden!" starting Thursday, April 14th and the Artful Journaling classes, Foundations and Explorations are starting on Tuesday, April 19th!
Come and join me, Laure Ferlita in the fun! For more information, you can visit the links above or visit the i•Trav•e•logue here.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
International Fake Journal Month Is Almost Here!
If the embedded video doesn't work you can see a flip through of my 2009 Fake Journal here on YouTube.
It's almost April and that means International Fake Journal Month (IFJM) is about to begin.
IFJM is the celebration of fake journals. Every year in April I encourage people to keep fake journals for the month. (April is the obvious choice right?)
If you don't know what a Fake Journal is, let me explain: A fake journal is a journal that is kept by a character of your creation. It is kept day, by day, as any other journal would be. The entries are dated with the date that it actually is when when it was written, i.e., today's journal entry would be marked 3/27/2011. What is fake about the journal is the fact that the character is not you, and the character is not writing about your life.
You can read more about Fake journals, as well as Historical Fake Journals and Faux Journals at the Official International Fake Journal Blog.
Each year I set up a prize drawing for participants and you'll find information on how to enter the 2011 contests in the right hand column of that blog under "Contests for 2011."
I've kept fake journals off and on my entire life. It seemed a natural outgrowth of my daily journal practice and my slightly odd sense of humor.
And I have found the practice informative and helpful, in many of the same ways that I have found my real journal keeping to be.
Just some of the ways fake journaling can benefit you include: new strategies to shut up your internal critic; new proficiencies with media; discovery of creative ruts and ways to get around them; and of course play.
Creative play is always good. It helps us get back to our real work.
If the idea of a fake journal intrigues you I invite you to check out the links to the Official International Fake Journal Blog and read more about the process. You'll also be able to view a couple of my past fake journals, as well as the fake journals of past participants. You might concoct a way to take a vacation from your journal WITH your journal, or explore issues of interest in a new way.
If you are new to journaling (written or visual) I recommend that you not keep a fake journal until you have firmly established your own journaling practice. But in the meantime there is no reason you shouldn't enjoy the posts about fake journaling and be entertained by the work of other artists trying this out.
Most of my posts on fake journaling are really about journaling in general, or rather real journaling—I'm just trying to give you some options, some ways of seeing something from a different angle. Something that you can take back to your regular journal practice to make it deeper and more satisfying because it comes from a place of epiphany.—Roz
Friday, March 25, 2011
Ut oh, what to do?
Here I was happily journaling along when I found out that March's full moon was extra special. Ut oh, no room left on the moon's page and I already had a start on the next page. What to do?
Laure and Kate had great suggestions but I read those too late, also :) Do we see a pattern here? Ha!
Here's what transpired in journal land:
Here's what transpired in journal land:
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| Please click images for a large view |
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Full Pollen Moon
I gave March's full moon a new name but can't help but think the long ago Native American tribes of this area probably called it Full Pollen Moon too :)
My nose has been so close to the grindstone lately I didn't hear about this moon being so special and called, by some, the 'supermoon' - I'm going to have to figure out how to add a note about this on an already full page!
My nose has been so close to the grindstone lately I didn't hear about this moon being so special and called, by some, the 'supermoon' - I'm going to have to figure out how to add a note about this on an already full page!
Day Pretties
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| Watercolor, Ink and Stamps 3.5 x 8.5 inches Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook |
This page was suppose to sizzle with all that fun, bold yellow pigment, but when I finished (before I added any background) it just didn't have it.
The most obvious fix seemed to be to add a background, but what? I had just created a page with amaryllis (here) and used text as the background and I didn't want to repeat myself. I let the sketchbook sit open on my desk so that I could see it each time I walked by.
Finally, I decided to go with stripes to help emphasis the long stems. As Kate says, "meh." I didn't much like the stripes. So out came the black pen and then I added black stripes. Still didn't like it.
Leaving the book open and continuing to study it, I had about decided it was going to have to live as it was. A little later, I was prowling around in my study on the hunt for an unrelated item when I stumbled across some stamps......and a light bulb came on.
I retrieved my sketchbook and went to work. I used tracing paper as a "shield" and stamped the background. In a few places, I drew in the stamp shape rather than try to cut a shield.
There are things I will do differently next time, but I really had fun with the process and evolution of this piece. Sometimes, we have to get outside of "normal" solutions and reach for something new to make a page successful!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
My big fat black journal
I’ve long been a fan of the kind of beautiful illustrated journal that Kate Johnson and others, like Roz Stendahl, Pam Johnson Brickell, and Danny Gregory, to give a few examples, produce.
Theirs are visually arresting books---almost art objects in themselves. They feature well-designed pages and handsome lettering. Often the books themselves are handmade, the paper of good quality.
While there may be entries of a personal nature, they are not so private that no thought is given to the appearance of the page for possible public sharing, even if the sharing is of a limited nature. In general, text and image are both important. The pages themselves may not be pristine. In Roz’s, Kate’s and Danny’s books, there’s lots of experimentation going on and many quick, quick sketches, but the overall effect seems to be of a well-made, nicely designed artifact. (I say ‘seems,’ because I have only seen these journals on line.)
My own illustrated journals, until recently, were different from these. They were more sketchbook than conventional journal, without a strong textual presence.
In those pages, I’ve practiced drawing because I LOVE it and so that I could become better at it. I’ve taught myself how to use watercolor, and, in more conventional journal-writing fashion, I’ve tried to get down on paper, in images, the important events and people in my life.
From the time I was about 8, though, I’ve written in diaries and journals. My sketchbooks were a thing apart from those written records of my life. For the past 6 years, my concentration on drawing and producing my blog Laurelines put an end to my journal keeping.
A few months ago, I turned to writing in a journal again. In taking up journaling once more, I remembered the lessons I learned years ago from the powerful, transformative book, The New Diary by Tristine Rainer. Rainer advocates journaling as a means to communicate with oneself, to develop creativity, to solve problems, to enrich the inner life.
Emphasis is on freedom of expression, expanding consciousness, finding a state of flow ---and getting all of this down on paper any way you can. Well-designed pages? Good paper? Nice lettering? Well, unless you operate that way instinctively, intuitively, with your eyes closed, without censors or brakes... no.
When I restarted my journaling life, I had not planned to include imagery. Or not planned NOT to.
I just bought a big blank book (big enough to allow me to scrawl across a page) with mediocre paper (something that the sketching me would not have been happy about) and started writing.
And images appeared, there, along with the words!
Not as illustrations, but more the rough lineaments of daydreams or nightmares, the quick capturing of something my eye fell on as I paused in my writing, time outs from hard thinking, notes for paintings and projects, sometimes plain old documentation, too. The images are more fleshed out than doodles, yet only rarely are they anything close to polished art pieces!
Theirs are visually arresting books---almost art objects in themselves. They feature well-designed pages and handsome lettering. Often the books themselves are handmade, the paper of good quality.
While there may be entries of a personal nature, they are not so private that no thought is given to the appearance of the page for possible public sharing, even if the sharing is of a limited nature. In general, text and image are both important. The pages themselves may not be pristine. In Roz’s, Kate’s and Danny’s books, there’s lots of experimentation going on and many quick, quick sketches, but the overall effect seems to be of a well-made, nicely designed artifact. (I say ‘seems,’ because I have only seen these journals on line.)
My own illustrated journals, until recently, were different from these. They were more sketchbook than conventional journal, without a strong textual presence.
In those pages, I’ve practiced drawing because I LOVE it and so that I could become better at it. I’ve taught myself how to use watercolor, and, in more conventional journal-writing fashion, I’ve tried to get down on paper, in images, the important events and people in my life.
From the time I was about 8, though, I’ve written in diaries and journals. My sketchbooks were a thing apart from those written records of my life. For the past 6 years, my concentration on drawing and producing my blog Laurelines put an end to my journal keeping.
A few months ago, I turned to writing in a journal again. In taking up journaling once more, I remembered the lessons I learned years ago from the powerful, transformative book, The New Diary by Tristine Rainer. Rainer advocates journaling as a means to communicate with oneself, to develop creativity, to solve problems, to enrich the inner life.
Emphasis is on freedom of expression, expanding consciousness, finding a state of flow ---and getting all of this down on paper any way you can. Well-designed pages? Good paper? Nice lettering? Well, unless you operate that way instinctively, intuitively, with your eyes closed, without censors or brakes... no.
When I restarted my journaling life, I had not planned to include imagery. Or not planned NOT to.
I just bought a big blank book (big enough to allow me to scrawl across a page) with mediocre paper (something that the sketching me would not have been happy about) and started writing.
And images appeared, there, along with the words!
The more the images appeared, the more I gave way to their flow. Now, I can hardly wait to see what will happen next!
Why I don’t KNOW what will happen next is because this new journal of mine is about process and not product. It’s about communication with the self, not with others.
And it’s about pulling together the various aspects of myself---myself the artist, myself the writer, myself the mother, wife, friend and all the rest... all in one place, between two covers of a regular old, big, black, blank book.
It’s an illustrated journal, but it doesn’t look like Kate’s, or Roz’s, or Danny’s, or Pat’s. It’s rough-hewn, private, with buckled and splattered pages, loaded with crossed-out words and wiggly arrows. It works for me. I write about it here as a way to show there are many ways to make this thing we call an illustrated journal and to say that maybe something LIKE this may work for you, too.
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