this would be a great exercise if your blocked up and lacking inspiration.It a riff on the old grib pattern fill up exercise, this one using collage and color! Very cool. Original Bliss has a blog here.
For those of you who don't know, I've been on vacation. Right now I'm sitting in my father's house in 90 degree heat sweating my ass off. After the massive amounts of rain the coast of Maine and most of the North East have had the heat is nice, just not something any of us are accustomed to feeling this year. Even this August, and the last few days in which I've been visiting have been abnormally cool. I don't mean for this post to become a meditation on the weather but more of a series of thoughts on vacations.
Every year I take a week in August off (from the DayJob) to visit my family and relax. One year we stayed at the camp on the lake without electricity. Another year we spent the time hiking the easier hikes in the area. Still another year I spent my week off working on the blueberry harvest. The last few years I've spent the time split between the farm, hiking and just spending time with my family. My family is aging and we see each other less and less, and the time in which we do spend together is more and more relaxing and less stressful.Also the pace of life in Maine is different, it always has been.
I say that as someone who grew up in Maine and was involved in many after school activities as well as having worked in Maine. The pace of life is different, I don't want to say slow, but it is something like that, but not with the implication of mediocrity that slow gives. There is less going on, because everything is so spread out and to decide to drive 2 hours to the large cinema or to drive 20 minutes to get Dunkin Donuts; it all takes planning. Forethought. Unlike here where I can walk to Dunks or call Papa Gino's and in 30 minutes a guy with pizza will arrive on my porch. No planning, nothing slowing me down, just doing it.
Planning makes you think, "Do I need that pizza?" "Do I want to drive the WHOLE way over to Dunks?" Nah I'll just make a second cup here. Maine makes me think.'Thinking is good,even when relaxing on vacation.
Youtuber Owls and elephants has a good video of a art journal page in progress, i’m a sucker for that sort of video. So you can see it here!
These are fun little sheets you can print off and use as a prompt for your journal. They ask you to load it up to flickr when your done. Pretty cool I'm loving this website!
Love the packed pages of robobop's moleskines. There is so much going on I don't know where to look All I know is that no matter where I look, my eyes are happy!
D.Price the hobo artist has been doing a 100 page zine for over 10 years now. The zine is simply amazing. Think of Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory but with a focus on travel. There's navel gazing insight, great drawings of places he's been descriptions of those places and some great photography. It's all good stuff.
You can see his website here.
While there take a look at the link for the free issue that is online.
Take a look at his etsy shop too where you can buy issues.
Some pics of Moonlight Chronicles:
Support an artist, buy his work, you'll be inspired, plus it's only $5. Seriously well worth it. I promise you won't be able to put it down. Think Everyday matters but 6 times a year.
So that book, the art journal that I've been working in? Yeah the one that was pissing me off? I did the rebind already, it didn't take to long and I removed some unworked signatures- 4 of them to be exact. Leaving me with only 3 untouched signatures left. I think that the real issue was that the thread stretched a lot. I've used the brown linen before and never had an issue but I've never had a book so loose before. Of course I over stuff the book with glued in pages and layers of acrylic making the books about twice as thick as when I started. I dind't really epect there to be an issue with it at all. but there was.
My solution:
All finished:
So I've been working in this journal for a month now:
It looks great but it's pissing me off. Why? the binding is getting loose and the stitches are sliding into the covers. Now I can take a little loose-ness but I've gotten to the point where I can no longer take it. The first 3 signatures have slid almost onto the covers and look awful. I mean really awful. I've packed it full of some art too.
I've gotten to the point where I WILL me rebinding it. Most likely tonight. I'll most likely leave out 3 or 4 signatures and use larger thread.
It's rare I get ticked off by a book of my own making, but this one really chapped my ass. After I get the rebinding doneI'll post the before and after pics. ARGH
I'm particularly digging on MegK2007's flickr stream of journals pages. All done in a moleskine, but wonderful collages of empheria and life's detritus as well as some great use (better) of scrap booking items. Wonderful
I particularly enjoy this page of this altered book by mindbum. I initially found this flickr through doodler's anonymous (my newest website to obsessively pour over) And stuck around because mindbum does his/her art in a book. I've always wanted to get into altered books but can't. As a bookbinder I adore books and I have a hard time drawing in them and paining in them. I have a couple that I've started and I never get more than a dozen or so pages in before I give up and switch to blank pages.
It's part of the reason I made the magazine page journal. I wanted to have something to work on top of and to help get past the fear of the blank page. It's not bad. The paper is inexpensive (got the mags for free) and I don't mind skipping pages and moving on. I may see if I can find some damaged books at the thrift store and work in those. We'll see.