I've tried ATC, I enjoy them for little sketches and fun doodles, but I'm not able to capitalize on the size and form the way some people are. Dale is one of those people. Her ATC are great. Check out the ATC below!
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 17th. 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.
Wordy Wednesday is a little late this week. No excuses other than laziness, lots of cooking and cleaning. No really I cleaned a bunch of stuff. I feel like such an adult!
I’ve written about copy right and the creative commons before. I moved my blog over to the creative commons as well as my entire flickr stream. It means you can share as long as you give attribution and your site is non-commercial. As long as I’m linked it’s good. Some people prefer that you never share their stuff or link to their blog only. To each their own.
I’ve also written previously about how I think copyright violations should be dealt with, and that is privately. First and foremost, you aren’t respected if you don’t give respect, even to those who do wrong. I see my job as to first try to educate. If I can’t educate, then I get defensive. People do the wrong thing all the time and they should be allowed to fix it, if they don’t then it’s time to get creative.
The other issue that I find is that I can only control my actions not those of others. I was told that a bunch of people on my ning gave another ning owner a hard time over the name of a workshop. I was accused to baiting the hook to incite this action. Though I had expressly and privately told the other person I felt the opposite. I can’t control other people. I’m insulted that someone would l think that others would do such a thing at my behest. Had the person told me as it was occuring I certainly would have written to those members and asked them to stop. Harassment of any kind isn’t cool especially when it’s being done in another person’s name. You can’t assume that the other person would want such a thing done. The best idea is to email the person you’re thinking of supporting or taking action for and let them know so they can deal with the situation. I appreciate support, but I like it best when the person knows for sure it’s what I believe.
I follow the golden rule here, I treat others the way I’d like to be treated.
I am not a brand.
I am an artist.
I paint.
I draw.
I write.
I bind books.
I’m passionate about the things that are important to me: equal rights for all, sometimes politics, love, fairness, people being treated properly, and the list goes on. I’m not afraid to voice those opinions. I’m usually pretty direct about this fact. I don’t often mince words. I don’t see the point. I also don’t see the point in letting stuff build up until I can no longer tolerate it. I used to do that a lot and it got me nowhere. I’ve found that while it’s difficult the best things I’ve done are those where I’ve been the most direct.
I am not a brand.
I am not interested in protecting my brand. I don’t even get what that means*. I’ve gotten where I am today by being me. I’m honest. I’ll give the shirt off my back to the people I like and if I am forced I’ll give the people I don’t like my socks. I’ll forgive most transgressions after some time has passed. I believe in honor and integrity. I’ll stand up for people even if I don’t like them. I confront issues head on, once I’ve vented and figured out a way to word it properly.
I am not a brand.
I am an artist.
I don’t believe in art world competition. I think artists, by and large do best by working together in a collaborative manner. I learn from you and you learn from me. When I teach classes I expect those people to come out of that class, take the information and add themselves to it. I ask only that they not publish exact documentation of what is in the class- ie please don’t publish my PDF files or videos. The art made in the class is the possession of the artist. The knowledge they gain is a stepping stone into bigger and better things.
As a teacher I expect that all my students eventually surpass my skill. I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m the end all with art journaling. In fact I think that there is plenty of room out there for all of us who teach art journaling. We all fill a different niche. I don’t do “pretty girls” with their head tilted at unnatural angles or lead workshops on The Artist’s Way. No there are other people out there who do it better. I’ve done my fair share to help promote other sites, here on my blog, through the art journaling ning, and within the pages of the zine Art Journaling it’s all good. Why? Like I wrote above I believe strongly that we work better as a team and as a collective. What I won’t do is participate in some sort of internet pissing match over who is the best because we all fulfill specific roles in the community. We all have our own specific space.
I am not a brand.
I am an artist.
I got an email telling me that someone (and others) thinks I’m hurting my “brand” by being me. You see if you think that you don’t get it, or me. It did make me think, which is good. The conclusion that I came to is that I can’t be anyone but me, trying to be something else would lose the honesty and integrity I’ve built this blog around. I will continue to be me.
I am not a brand.
I am an artist.
I paint.
I draw.
I write.
I bind books.
I got an email a couple of days ago; it was one of those messages that made me think. First it really made me angry because of the context. Words I’d had with someone were taken out of their true context, warped and suddenly a molehill became a mountain. So it goes. The thing that came of this is that it made me think, and think long and hard.
I’m sarcastic. I’ve been sarcastic my whole life. I look for the humor in things to make it easier for me that often translate to sarcasm. It’s not something I am interested in changing. Sometimes I try and mask my negative emotions- anger and sadness with sarcasm. It comes off as negativity, and yeah it is. I took a look at some of the stuff I’ve been taking part in and the people I’ve been talking to and realize I’ve been feeding into negativity. I’ve let people manipulate me into saying things I don’t necessarily want to share. In a way I’ve fed the internet trollz. I may have done it behind the scenes but I still fed the drama seekers. I look back to the attack here on my blog and see that after that, it was as if I opened the door to the drama, and then forgot to close it when I started to get back to business as usual. I had a lot of people who rallied around me, and that was great but a few people who rallied around me used it as an opportunity to get past my usually high guard and then use what I say in private against me.
In the future I’ll certainly be more careful of whom I trust with conversations I intend to be a private. I chalk this up to a lesson learned.
So I've been thinking that I should, as Connie says, Just Paint!
I'm really digging the rainbow of colors on these future journal covers by lootsvele. These could easily cover any journal but I love how these are personalized.
I generally leave the covers of my art journals plain and save the color for inside. I'm now starting to toy with the idea of decorating the outside. I used to do that with all my journals when I was a teen. Ideas…
This weekend I picked up a bargain priced sketchbook at B&N for about $5. I thought it was a no name brand that B&N often sell. When I got it home I realized it’s a Piccadilly branded journal.
The list price on this sketchbook is $12.99; I got it for $4.99. Less than half price. I noticed that B&N didn’t have ANY of these on the regular shelf. So I’m thinking these are only ordered for the cheapie racks. Which is fine, at $5 this isn’t a bad deal but for $12.99 not worth the money.
I tested this with a variety of inks in a variety of pens. I did a little sketching to see how the paper would respond and I did my usual of an ink and water wash.
Anything with a larger than a fine tip feathered and bled through the paper. There was a TON of feathering especially in my medium tipped and wet writing Pelikano. My extra fine and fine pointed pens did okay, regardless of the ink. I tested both sides of the paper and there is no right/wrong side, the sides have the same finish throughout the journal. The paper is very smooth. I wouldn’t want to use a pencil on this paper as it’s just too smooth and pencil would smudge all over the place.
As for water on this paper, it could be done but it’s not recommended, a very light wash caused major cockling (wrinkles) that never eased out of the paper. I also noticed that really heavy application of ink caused the same issues. Anywhere I used a heavy layer of ink it not only bled through the paper but also to the page underneath. Anywhere there was heavy ink use the fibers of the paper lifted and were picked up by the nib of the pen.
The Pros:
Cons:
Overall I’d say this is a good sketchbook for someone looking for something cheap that they can do a lot of throwaway sketches in or just to take some notes. This little journal probably wouldn’t stand up to a lot of the abuse that art journalers would toss at it. Even if you gesso’ed the pages the paper is just not sturdy enough. It’s too bad, because this is a really good looking little sketchbook, and comes in a lot of good sizes and with lined paper too which has a lot of different options for covers.
Many of the friends I grew up with have moved all over the world, few of us remain in DownEast Maine or even the area of the country where we attended college. One is in Germany, another in Phoenix, AZ; still another is in Thailand, and others are scattered through out the US. My friends don’t seem to be as tied to place as I am.
I was reminded of this when a friend posted to FaceBook that she missed developing her own photos and was looking for a place where she could use the dark room. Well, I know a place and a person, not far from where she lives and gave her some contact info.
I lived in Maine and for the most part the same 300 mile radius for 24 years. Sometimes I miss it, intensely, deeply, and with longing. Some of the best moments of my life occurred in those 300 miles; my first kiss, college, painting the rugged coast, friendships that have lasted through years, and miles and miles of hiking.
Occasionally I have moment like tonight where all I want to do is sell my house, quit my job, and move back to that rugged coast, because, damn I miss it. The coast here in Massachusetts is just not the same. There is something to be said about the rugged and craggy coast of Maine and that something causes you to miss it intensely.
All that aside, finding a job is difficult so I stay here.
I've written about how faces and gears show up in my work. I was interviewed over here a while back and one of the images she used was a gouache on board that is, what Eveline refered to as "classic" Less style. And it's true. It is. Bright colors, gears and faces.
This is another riff on that same theme, 2 faces and a page of gears.
In this case I carved a rubber stamp for the gear and used a few dicuts as other gear type things. The faces are drawn in pencil, acrylic used to blend them and the dicuts are colored with ink before being glued to the page. Over all this is a very simple page but very much me.
The troll attack on the blog (and on others) and the eloquent rebutals spawned loving kindness week. A few kind souls got the ball rolling on a UStream-a-thon, art journal pages, and blog posts. The love was felt through out the Art Journaling world and something really special came of this week. As the week comes to an end and I've gotten more loving kind emails than I've gotten in a long time I'm amazed at the power of being loving and kind to our fellow human beings. I'm a little overwhelmed. A couple of people are sending me artwork, and I can tell you right now it will be framed and hung over my desk, a place of honor as I sit here daily.
Here are some links to those people who participated in Loving Kindness Week.