pine ave and seaside way, long beach, CA
Originally uploaded by paul heaston

This is a great line drawing. So simple and so effective.

I’ve been making a ton of art lately. I was talking to a friend of mine about how the art gets in your head and forces you to consider it all the time. For instance I walk my dogs and think I should bring my camera in case I see something cool that I might want to take a picture of because it might possibly someday make a good watercolor. My dogs hate walking with me because I’m constantly staring at stuff.

For instance, down the street where the VW place used to be is a giant backhoe. It’s big yellow, blue and white with bold red lettering. I’ve shot a bunch of pictures of it, while trying not to trespass, and yet not caring if I do. Why? Who knows? Will I ever make art using the pics? I have no clue.

I go through phases like this where everything is intensely about art. Later I’ll have a phase where all I do is write but the writing is all about art. There are swings. It’s okay to have swings. It’s natural. Sometimes the swings are from media to media mostly it’s between art and writing.*

This dismal grey winter was a bit much and I’m glad it’s over. I’ve talked about spring fever with my art friends and we’re ALL feeling it pretty intensely this year. I have to wonder how other people are dealin with their spring fever, am I the only one who sees a giant increase in art making right now?

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When you go to school for art your professors tell you about all the stuff you are supposed to do, you know, the all important rules for making art that lasts forever. And then there are the rules of composition, color, design and everything else. Every professor has a set of rules that vary slightly from the other professors and of course their rules are the “right” rules. It’s all this hogwash that makes art school tiring and yet fun.

It’s good to learn rules about safety, like, don’t smoke while painting with oils. Holding your brush in your mouth is a bad idea, and generally speaking pointing your watercolor brush with your mouth is both grotesque and unsafe.

then there are the rules that my professor used to bark at me (with love) “Herger, preserve the white of the page!” “Watercolors should shine!” “Adding white to watercolor makes it gouache!” “Letting your gouache dry out turns it into crappy watercolors!” “Work bigger, fill the page with color, but for god’s sake preserve the white of the page.”

Sometimes the rules contradict one another.

Sometimes you have to ignore the rules.

Sometimes following the rules makes great art.

Conversely sometimes ignoring the rules makes great art.

That brings me to my Monday observations about my art making over the weekend. Jim’s barked rules have stuck with me. granted I ignore a good deal of what he said, after all I don’t approach a watercolor with a clear outline of color, order, and direction; instead I focus on light and dark and the colors I feel at that moment. I had a 40% off coupon to AC Moore and wandered in, planning to buy a depleted color and found myself not liking their selection, when I saw the Liquid Mask. I figured what the hell, I may as well try it. I haven’t used liquid mask since college, when I borrowed a friends for an assignment.

Dutifully I sketched out my subjects and then filled the areas of white with mask. I proceeded with my paintings as normal. I applied my washes and layered on colors. I applied indigo heavily and loads of payne’s gray. I let them completely dry…

Then peeled off the mask.

I hate the pristine white. It seems out of place with my messy watercolor technique to have these sharply white areas among pools of wet into wet color and layered colors. So I’m going to put pale washes of color over them, so they fit in.

See, sometimes the rules just don’t work.

AJ: Bones
Originally uploaded by annah_savage

How can you not enjoy the show Bones? And how can you not enjoy the bright fun colors of this AJ page?

So I'm a bad technical pen owner. I have a set of Koh-i-noor Rapidocraft pens that I've used all sorts of unspeakable inks in, waterproof inks that dry to a crusty gunk on the pen, sealing parts shut and making them difficult to clean. As a result, I tossed them in a drawer and.. forgot about them.

Fast forward several months later and I want to use them only, well, crusted shut and needing to be cleaned, badly.

I soaked the pens in a warm soapy sink for 30 minutes, softening teh crusty bits and allowing me to open everything up. After another 45 minutes of disassemply, squeezing water through with a bulb syringe, and scrubbing the pens are clean. They are not pristine, the unspeakable ink has clouded the clear plastic sections on some of the pens but not all.

I've inked them up with Noodler's Black. This bulletproof ink won't crust up and will clean off with ease should I forget my pen in a drawer for 4 months…

JD 10
Originally uploaded by sandravandergeest

I have no idea what this says but I love the gear shape.

THe last 2 weeks I've been hard at work on 3 things: Typing up the new class, the Facebook Face Experiment and Sketching.

The new class is morphing as I type my handwritten words into text on teh computer, and it's morphing in a good way. It's becomgin more than I thought at first. I'm really examining how I've written in my journals and used my journals over the last 20 odd years. Exciting!

I rejuvenated the Face Experiment, this time with a focus on color and exploring that color. Head over checkout the images and submit your face!

Sketching has been going really well. I start with rough guidelines in pencil and add to them with fountain pens. It's been pretty fun sketching useless things like used tea bags and bottle caps. they really are things you jusy don't expect to see elevated up to the level of "art.' I have a few ideas that have derived from these sketches and I'm hoping to work on them. No big ideas but ideas…

I’m home sick, yet again. I’m attempting to avoid antibiotics for my poor sinuses. I’m drinking tea and doing neti pots and resting which is about the best I can hope for at this point.

I had a couple of conversations with a couple of different people and it set me right. Put me back on my path correctly. I have to get back to the heart of the matter and that is art and my art. I can’t make everyone happy all of the time and some of the time I’m going to make people unhappy. The important thing is that I do this thing that I’m doing and I do it authentically. I do it by being me, occasionally misguided and misconstrued, but me.

So I’m getting things ready for my art journaling class, Spring Alive and I started the Face Experiment up again. The Face Experiment really gets to the core of I want to do- paint and draw.

A guy I kinda knew from work passed away last weekend. He’d had a long battle with cancer. He was young and had made his way up the ranks of leadership with the company. Anytime someone passes away it leaves me with the thought, if I died tomorrow, or knew I was to die young what would I do differently? Would I change the course of my life? Make different decisions? It’s a thought process in futility. I can’t change the past all I can do is change my future.

I’m starting that process, today, but just going ahead and doing it, painting and drawing every day. Help me on my path, head over to the Face Experiment and load up a picture of your face.

Check out some of the pics from the project:

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I’ve had this crazy plan to do another prompt related workshop on ning but with a twist. The crazy idea I had is to make it more intense, directive, with questioning. When I journal I ask myself questions and really explore what’s going on in my head. I don’t just write and paint to not think about the stuff going on in my mind. Rather I look at my art journal as a place to walk up to the edge of my understanding and tip my toe just over that line, and then hopefully dive in and learn how to swim.

That is what art journaling is all about- an adventure in my mind. I want you to try this method out see what it’s like and see if it is something you’d like to put into your daily art journaling practice. Because I want as many people to try this out as possible I’m going with a “pay what you can” method of payment.  The group will be hosted on AJ Ning as all of my workshops are. You’ll need to request membership and once you’ve requested membership you’ll find buttons to pay. Suggest payment is $20, however if you can’t afford that, pay what you can. If you’d like to pay for a spot for someone else, pay more.

The class will run from March21st to April 17^th. That’s 4 weeks. Each week will feature a pdf with text, 7 simple prompts, 2 intense prompts and what I like to call 2 ideas. The simple prompts are words and phrases to get the ideas rolling, you can journal on them once per day but there are thematic and meant as more of a meditative prompt.  The 2 intense prompts ask you a question and you think on it and write. The text is some of my thoughts on art journaling, why to do it, how it can positively influence you in your everyday life and how it has influenced me.