The second rain storm of the week just arrived and it immediately made it a little warmer. Good, although I know many of you who read here are suffering below zero temps.
I put the art journals aside for almost a week but got around to completing a page tonight. I call it the divine feminine. My PhotoShop marquee tool is goofing up so the crop isn't clean. Sorry.
Cookie died on Oct. 23 and since then I have not been able to look at photos of her, but today I made a breakthrough. I started a desktop folder and began pulling photos of her into it. Then I made my first art journal page of her tonight. I still have more doodling and pen work to do, but I'm very happy when I look at it. It is my intention to make one art journal of all the animals that were in my life, but featuring her the most. So, here's the first Cookie art journal page.
Yesterday, Halloween, I drove to the Urban Craft Center on Main St. in Santa Monica to take Kelly Kilmer's class on making an art journal from scratch. The first class I ever took on using rubber stamps, making cards and collages was from Kelly, way back when.
This is Kelly working in her own art journal towards the end of our class. I can't get over how happy and in the moment I am when I am making art.
Kelly teaches often in Southern California, but she travels all over the United States offering classes. This is her class schedule.
Right after Cookie died and the So Cal windstorm blew in last Tuesday, I've had my usual winter creeping crud--allegeries, sinuses dripping, and that awful cough that not only scares people, it embarrasses the hell out of me. I forewarned everyone I was not sick and loaded up on antihistamines.
With a lot of help from Kelly, who is infinitely patient, I did indeed make a journal and slopped paint on several pages just to get started. Here is one page I completed.
I usually put up my Day of the Dead altar at home each year but this year I just didn't have the oomph to do it. So, this journal pages honors my ancestors and friends who have gone before me.
By the way, Kelly also teaches an online daily journaling class called A Prompt A Day. You'll see the link on her blog listed above. I have two friends taking it--Paula in Denver and Connie in DC. and they are enjoying it very much.
I labored most of this Labor Day on preparing the South Bay Macintosh Users Group newsletter, but did manage to scan one of the pages I finished up on my Play art journal. Tomorrow night I hope to scan the rest. So, here's a page I call Sssh!
With Labor Day only a half hour away California time, I have just completed a labor of love; I finished the art journal I began in July when I took Teesha and Tracey Moore's Play workshop in Pt. Townsend, WA. I'll scan a few pages tomorrow and post them.
Tonight I thought you might enjoy seeing a student's journal cover which was in the spring art show. She made her covers of clay and fired them. Obviously, you wouldn't pack this journal in a suitcase or even carry it down to your local coffeehouse where you sometimes write. But, it is unique and how I would love it on my coffee table where my fellow journalers meet to write.
I'm nearing completion on the 20-page art journal I started at Teesha and Tracy Moore's Play workshop in Pt. Townsend last month, but I have a yearning to start another one where I truly "practice" and find my voice. My stuff seems to look so much different than a lot of other pages I've seen.
A few weeks ago I found an old spiral bound "Drawing is Fun" address book whose stock was heavy enough to paint on. It was at the Malaga Cove used book sale--25 cents! Its size is 7" x 7" and it seems that is small enough that I should be able to make it into an art journal without feeling too intimidated. I altered the book and it is my new explore techniques art journal. I gessoed the covers and I keep painting pages so if and when I feel like horsing around in it, I'm ready to start. Veteran art journalers tell me to even randomly lay images which will ultimately force me to make something out of whatever color and image is on the page.
Incidentally, though I rarely post to the Yahoo Groups The Art Journal moderated by Ricë Freeman-Zachery at Voodoo Cafe, it's a treasure trove. Many art journalers keep their albums at The Art Journal and it's a great place to study technique and see what others are creating.
So, here are three pages. I'm just about ready to start exploring more imaginative pages and trying my hand at drawing, although I have as much skill as a kindergartner. (Although my own K grandson draws better than I do, frankly.)
I’ve known for years about murdered photojournalist Dan
Eldon’s story
and his journals, but never really explored who he was or even saw anything
beyond a few reproductions of his art journal pages. Only 22 years old, he was
killed in an uprising in Somalia in 1993. His mother Kathleen M. Eldon,
published a book of his journals in 1997 called “The Journey is the
Destination.”
So, the stage is set. Imagine my delight to find a pristine copy of the “The
Journey is the Destination” at the Malaga Cove Used Book Sale today. It was $5
and I’ve been mesmerized by it since.
Next I discovered that there is a permanent exhibition of Dan Eldon's journals at the Candela/Decker gallery in
Manhattan as reported by The New York Times.
There is also a traveling exhibition of his journals and it was at Santa Monica College last spring. Bummer! But, Eldon wasn’t on my radar screen then. Don’t you just love how the Universe works sometimes? You vaguely know about someone or something. You tuck it into your brain somewhere, and when the time is right, more information presents itself. That's the way it was for me in the late 1970s when I became deeply interested in the Trappist monk Thomas Merton but didn't pursue it. Then I received a copy of "The Seven Storey Mountain" in a new year's eve dice game, believe it or not, and a whole new world opened up to me. My Master's thesis was "Dialogues With Thomas Merton," and I once made a pilgrimage to all his New York haunts when I was with students at Columbia University. I even got permission to use Merton files in the Columbia archives.
I'm looking forward to learning about the legacy that Dan Eldon has left us all.
I have had two Barnes and Noble gift cards burning a hole in my wallet for months, but I didn’t have a yearning for any particular book, so kept them tucked safe. Last night I realized that I had missed ordering the premiere copy of Somerset’s Art Journaling and now it’s only available in digital format.I was so looking forward to having that magazine.
Because I want to broaden my art journal horizons, I visited good old B&N in search of a book I didn't have.
I bought two absolutely incredible books on art journaling and got my 20% educators discount as well.
1000 Artist Journal Pages by Dawn DeVries Sokol
I’m particularly excited to try a lot of the techniques that Violette demonstrates. I love her work and she makes me feel like I can do this, too.
Do you have favorite art journaling books with good examples of the range of possibilities? I’m not very original, but I’m great at getting ideas from other people’s creations.
I'm still plugging away on my 20 page art journal from the Play workshop I took from Teesha and Tracy Moore in Pt. Townsend last month.
I feel like such a novice, but then I'm my own worst critic. I call this page and its flap "Where Was God?" Click on it to enlarge it.
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