April Love - Blogging Challenge - A Month of Love Letters

Writing with Blogging Prompts -  Journaling - Writing and Art Journaling

I've decided that it's time for me to do some writing and traditional blogging, using some journaling prompts. 

Writing is one of those things I've been told I do really well, but unlike painting or drawing it just bores the snot out of me to actually do it. If I'm writing, I usually need to be paid. Money is a decent motivator, after all, and I have been paid periodically, for what I write.

I came across an April's worth of blogging/journaling prompts and I decided to dive in. It's been forever since I've participated in any kind of creative writing prompts.  I'm feeling a little vulnerable about this process, but I'm going to "feel the fear and do it anyway" as the kids say. My writing can be pretty culturally-referential and indirect when it's personal like this, so it may not even make tons of sense to people outside the same miniscule social niches that I've traveled in. Normally that's a liability, but for this duration, I don't have to care.

I could use a bit of a better blogging habit, I realized. I can actually pull material out of for artwork, something that gets me in touch with the process of words into images into both -  in a personal way once more, something I might even enjoy a bit.

I'll be doing these April Love Letter prompts, catching up from day 3. I'll go back for the other ones, eventually.

http://www.susannahconway.com/april/
Discovered via  http://effybird.com/2016/04/april-love-trigger-alert/ 


Dear Feet,

Your peripatetic ways are going to get me in trouble. You realize, no matter how much pavement you pound, the feeling of West Broadway, when you could go from gallery to gallery, is over. It's not just over because you're 1500 miles gone. It's not just over because Bob Morris decided to go all ash and bone instead of Ignatz mouse throwing bricks at the establishment. It's over because every city block takes you Bed Bath and Beyond a time in the timeline that you would recognize.  

Feet, you'd better get used to mulch pathways, flowers, sunshine. All those things that you're immediately suspicious about. It's tolerable here because everyone is miserable all winter, and the joy and horniness explodes every summer in a truly Scandinavian show of fireworks and drama. If there wasn't any miserable, you know how it is. Every good day would send you running in suspicion, every smile would become its own West Coast mildly perpetually medicated situation normal. You'd have to assume a cover up. Right?

Feet, you are really sons of bitches sometimes.  A great pair of rubes for my autoimmune buffoon to inflame and terrorize. It goes after all the choice bits that make life worth living, but you still perform for me, command performances. I don't talk about our problems with anyone else, till we've got to sit down and chill for a minute.  You've got my back, I've got yours. Still do.

Love, 
Me.

Finished Up

So here's the finished spread from a few days back. Some changes, but not too major. I find I'm waiting for a lot of things in my life right now, one of them is the end of a steroid taper, that's the most concrete of them. If you have ever done a long one of these, you'll know the feeling.

I've also  been playing with watercolor. Everything they say is so true about it - it's hard. It's wildly uncontrollable. It's so easy to create hideous badness. And it's fun.

Journal Page - The Difficult

I got out the gelli plate the other night - monotype with a press is my "thing" - years ago I had an artist residency at MN book arts for my monotype work.  It's completely different without a press, but I think I'm going to enjoy wrestling with this little silicone blob until I like the results.

 Her crown and dress are some very subtle mossy gelli printed papers. Collage, watercolor, stamping, drawing - other than the water color washes almost all the paint is applied with a tsukineko fantastix foam stick. I'm still crazy for those things.  I should keep a running list of supplies I find "worth it."

Mixed Media on Loose Fabriano Watercolor

I am trying not to go ape and throw poo be bummed about YET MORE SNOW. Enough. Any time now.

Well, even if I'm kept indoors at least I can play. This is like the rainy day activity that never ends.

In GOOD news, it is the anniversary of Paint Party Friday! PPF has introduced me to many talented and friendly bloggers/artists, and it's one of those nice blog parties that makes a self-employed freelancer feel just that tiniest bit less like a cave dwelling hermit. YAY PPF. Here's to many many more!

Journal Page - The Possible

I've got a Moleskine A4 that I've been kind of precious about using because it's expensive watercolor paper and a nice binding and blah.

What a mistake that was! It's nice to get out of the square format of my usual journals. I do love Bee paper recycled 9x9's quite a lot, mainly because I find them heavyweight enough for all that I throw at them AND nicely portable.

But the Moleskine? There's obviously a reason they're popular. I believe these to go in the "worth every penny" category. It's just really pleasant to play with water media on the right kind of paper, and still have the option to keep things bound.

What's all this then?

Watercolor, my own carved stamps, pigment ink, commercial background stamp, acrylic, gesso, caran d'ache crayon, acrylic ink with a crowquill pen, charcoal, washi tape, alpha stamp. Whew!

You probably don't need a psych degree to tell that things are turning around a bit for me, too. The hopeless malaise of a flare that lasts for unknown amounts of time is over. I'm moving away from misery - for how long who can say, but my experience tells me I can now dig in and get on with the rest of my year, with any luck!

The body may be a step behind, but the mind is light and ready to say yes to things.

Chronicles Project week 5 that is not week 5

One of the hidden joys of doing 29 was finding the Chronicles Project over at Wonderstrange. Sarah's prompts and journal concerns seem as if they were tailor made for my brain.

Let's break it down - say you see a journal page with the word "dream" on it.

What does that tell you? What does that actually cause you to do?

I tend to get anxious. The problems in my life are not caused by a lack of vision, rather by a poor sense of implementation, sometimes within my control - just as often NOT within my control.

Results: look at happy pink spread. Feel miserable.

Chronicles is not about writing down "awesome!"  - it follows that best of literary rules.

Show don't tell.

So, my awesome. Let me show you it.

These are the parts of the week 5 prompts I decided to work with:

1. Write about your favorite thing that happened this week.
2. What song do you love this week?
3. Take a picture of the thing that is making you really happy right now.

1. This is not a banner week. I know a lot of us have horrible autoimmune diseases, mine is making my life less than fabulous, though better than hospitalized, so not all is lost, right?  The wife made cookies and made things not completely implode all around me. That was awesomesauce.

2. Easy.  Avant Gardener. It's so awesome to me because it both deals with being sick in some fashion AND having that outside-of-yourself ability to laugh at the first-world-problems nature of being sick and outside the "old enough to be sick" demographic and the way that other people look at you or your worries about the way that other people look at you.


Also "The neighbors must think we run a meth lab. I should amend that, I pull up weeds" is particularly awesome.

3. I don't photograph my life. Which is funny, because photo was a huge interest of mine in art school daze past. I opened an instagram account, and took a picture of one of those little things in life that's making me SUPER happy (yeah I know wheat and sugar are inflammatory, but if a coffee and a cookie are going to kill me it's not worth it anyway.)

This would ordinarily go under the journal rubric "it's the little things." Amirite?

 

 A little repurposing of my own stuff. I printed a card, it misfired, I cut it up.

I don't hoard scrapping stuff, but I do have some, and since everyone has some psycho IP insane Angel policy for every sticker now, it can just go live in my journal.

Ask/Ask - Art Journal Page

No matter how old you get, you and your mother will probably have this dialogue.

.....

technical sidestep of further navel-gazing time!
There's some of that tasty hand stamping, you can see where I started.

Gelatos again. I think they're a definite candidate for my next BRUTALLY HONEST PRODUCT REVIEW segment - will they pass the test? As always, it depends what you are testing!

Also used - 99 cent alpha stamp, posca, charcoal, pencil, gesso.

I draw him so I can talk about you without talking about you - Art journal Every Day

Acrylic, acrylic ink, poscas, washi tape (a little)

I used a wooden embellishment from Michaels as a mask, and went over my background with Tattered Angels spay in "cork."  Also some distress ink around the borders.

The sparrow is a print and cut from my own work - I drew him freehand from an 1860 or so ornithological reference picture. Then when I liked the stage the sketch was at - you guessed it - scan and print onto computer paper, cut and paste and paint over the sketch, used as an underpainting.

Color this Quote Challenge

The fine folks at Artists in Blogland featured my work as part of show off saturdays! Check them out.

For the Color this Quote challenge over at Artists In Blogland 

This is a paper collage, featuring multiple  hand alterations to a print of one of my paintings, some collage with decorative papers, some stenciling, some lace, some vintage book pages,  and some hand stamping. The wings are from The Graphics Fairy.

Dolls and Tales - Art Journal and Flat Art Doll

Cat Flat Art Doll

Another one of my flat art dolls. This one was tough, because of the edge. They're too thick to leave raw or blanket stitch, and they're too fussy to bead around if I cut the limbs separately. However, as I stitch down like this the backing likes to travel out of line with the top layer. I need to find the right fix for this issue!

Anyhow, I may leave miss kitty well enough alone, or I may do an owl companion.  Not sure.

It's inktense, beading, embroidery, and it's backed with cotton duck - showroom sample scrap I purchased at SE Harris warehouse.

While we're on the subject of children's stories (maybe)

Queen Of Hearts Art Journal Page

I've started a small journal (5x7) and I'm not sure if it's going to be themed (I keep trying to do this) or just random. 

I think an "antagonists" gallery would be kind of neat and unusual. I could also write into the theme a lot - thinking about different obstacles.

Should I go for "antagonists" or stick to something more open, like faces or fiction or nothing in particular?