Since my schedule has opened up, I’m making more art…
Some are works in progress…
Some decide to be finished all of a sudden…
Creativity soothes the savaged soul…
Category Archives: Art Journal
Let Freedom Ring.
Had a dramatic past 2 days as my Fella of the past 5 months and I broke up & he went crazy, took my house key, and abandoned me in Murphys, CA.
With the help of my friends (who are SO STELLAR, I can’t even tell you…) he didn’t get into my house and he’s all kinds of gone, so Happy Independence Day.
I have finished a few pages recently…
And I have multiple works in progress:
It’s back to work tomorrow, but otherwise my schedule JUST opened up, so there’s more time for art now…
Acquisitions:
I took my bestie, Judy, the Point Richmond city yard sale on Monday and we had a BLAST!
Among other adventures, we met, and bought these treasures from, the stamp lady…
I have many stamps that I want to use more in my art…now including these.
And then I received my stencil order from joggles.com today…
YAY!!!
Livin’ la vida stencil, y’all!
Also, I’m now working on a spread using a Peaky Blinders quote:
“Everyone’s a whore…we just sell different parts of ourselves.”
– Tommy Shelby
And THEN…I received another postcard!
From Canada!
Art Rules!
Photos or scans?
So…up until now I’ve exclusively taken photos of my journal pages, but I wanted to find out whether scanning would be better.
Photo 1:
Scan 1:
Photo 2:
Scan 2:
Photo 3:
Scan 3:
Photo 4:
Scan 4:
I just don’t know if scanning is worth it…
Hmmm…
Pages…
I have stated that I’m working in 7 (seven) large (9×11-ish) journals, all at the same time, right?
So, it works out that I finish pages in waves…
(That’s a Rob Thomas song, (Paper Dolls) off his album, The Great Unknown.
Love Rob Thomas music. I’ve seen Matchbox Twenty and Rt solo a couple times, and I LOVE his songwriting and voice. I loves me a good singer/songwriter
This song makes me think of my ex.
This is from The Perks Of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky.
I think of some folks when I read this….
Finished this today, sitting on a bench on Georgia street after lunch…
This is uncharacteristic of me, in that it is so sparse…so severe…
But this bad boy goes out to my last TWO exes.
This is Joan of Arc.
’nuff said?
Packing for travel
I’m leaving for the annual PLA (Public Library Association) conference in Philadelphia tomorrow, but as I am sorting the contents of my art bag, I had to finish a couple things…
Its to be snowing in Philly tomorrow and Wednesday.
Please send WARM mojo for my California self…
…meant to do that…
I most always forget to take photos of what I make, especially during the making, but check this out:
At this point I see many faces in this, but I didn’t stop…
…And, now there are MORE faces…and even B & W is something I don’t even hate…
Hmmm…need to get painty again…
One (1) love affair, Beginning to End.
They met:
It was magic in a coffee shop.
He charmed her…woo’d her…
Made her care…
…until New Year’s Eve, when he ghosted her.
January 1, 2018, she made him look her in the eye…
There is nothing else to say, I suppose.
We were so happy…until he turned off like he was on a switch.
Happy New Year.
I started a mini planner.
Art Journal…4+ years in the making…
So. Many. Photos.
At 8 x 10, this journal is bigger than any I’ve finished in the past (only as big as 5.5 x 8 until now), and it’s good for me to pay attention to this event…
The oldest date in this journal is 2013, so here we are.
I worked on this during women-only meetings in Imperial County, CA…
….during interminable meetings while working for CDCR…
….while paying attention in library staff meetings, cuz making these keeps me from fidgeting…
….waiting at doctors’ offices…
….not during radiation treatment, tho…
…..in fact, there was a stretch of time…9 months or more….when I made very little art at all…
…but…after surgery, and rads…
….trips to Kansas for love…
…and to Oklahoma to see my Bestie…
….trips to trainings and conferences…
…sitting in coffee shops, drinking coffee while pouring myself onto these pages…
…the colors and the textures of the acrylics…
….the freedom to play…
…I could never regret my experiences…
…as the sum of them all makes ME…
…and the time I spend, with a brush, or a pen, or a brush-tipped pen…
…possibly considered to be wasted time by others…
…would…nah…COULD NEVER be thought of that way by me.
The repetitive motion, combined with the creativity inherent in all of this…
…is meditative and grounding for me.
…there is no “purpose” or goal at the end…
…I’m not selling any of the journals I make…
…they are precious to me only…
…I have nobody to will these to…
…so they are for me.
And after the books are beat to hell in my backpack…
…and I’ve bled all over the pages…
…they sit on a shelf…
…amongst my books…
…and written journals from 1985…
…until I pull them down…
…to show them to someone…
…or just to pore over the pages…
…amazed at the things that I have made…
…revelling in my own awesomeness…
…knowing that ANYONE can do this…
…but nobody can copy me…
…and while anyone CAN do this….
…I am the one who has been making this, this WHOLE time….
…and it turns out that these are all love letters…
…made by me…
…TO me…
…FROM me…
…FOR me…
….sometimes about me…
…sometimes a collection spot for love from others…
…like this picture that my dear friend, Judy, made to wrap a present she gave to me…
…and how could I not save this forever?
The pages that go here are in process…there is an envelope that needs its inner flap arted…
And then there’s something about my previously mentoned Bestie…
…and…others as well…
…and about nothing at all…
In the end, it doesn’t matter if I tell fiction…
or non-fiction…
…the important thing is telling the story…
…saying something…
…even a story about nothing…
…about everywhere…
…somewhere…
…or nowhere at all…
No matter what you’ve done…
…or left, tragically, undone…
…there are always things to say…
…and things to see…
…places to go…
…people to be…
…and Art journals to fill…
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. The last picture is the back cover…
So, now what am I supposed to do with my life? HAHAHA…
Horatio and Emily 