HEROINE

 

Frida Kahlo has been my heroine for a long time - because of a horrific car accident in her youth she lived with a LOT of pain and wore a leather corset because of back injuries.  But she made art and painted anyway, sometimes even from her bed.  If she can do it, then so can I ...

You can see the very simple way the page began with a background of pink and touches of lilac.   Teesha Moore (another of my heroines and a real inspiration) issued a challenge to do something with cut outs from one of her pages, and I found the idea intriguing.  What you see below is various shapes cut out and laid over my pinky background, and I really liked the result!

But it did seem to need a strong black line (Posca paint pen) to delineate the various "windows" as I was thinking of them.  You may also notice that I added a touch more orange paint around the centre.

So then I had Frida looking bravely and somewhat challengingly out of my 'windows".  Her direct gaze made me think about being brave when I really wasn't feeling it, and that's where the words came from.

And then I remembered that saying about bravery not being the absence of fear, but acknowledging your fear and going on anyway, and I figured that DID make me brave, however little I felt it!

The wormhole doodling was an afterthought but I like the way it enhances the window effect and the sense of seeing through .... I'd never had page a page like this without Teesha's challenge as inspiration!

And, I have the most amazing news to report.  The lab results from himself's surgery came back completely clear of cancer, COMPLETELY.  It wasn't in the lymph nodes at all, so he has an all clear and no further treatment.  It has to be the result of the many prayers which were offered on our behalf, and we can't quite take it in yet ... although we have booked a holiday!!

I MESS THINGS UP

 

Quite recently I was talking with a friend who said - you've messed up quite a few times in your life haven't you?  I agreed this was sadly true, and also that it was highly likely to happen again, because its what we human beings do. You try not to, and you do get better over your life at making fewer mistakes, just as you grow in self-knowledge of what you are and aren't good at.  Some of the most important things I've learned have come through the painful lessons of getting stuff wrong, but I choose to embrace that rather than allow myself to be forever haunted by my mistakes.

I must acknowledge a very strong Teesha Moore influence here - these flower garden shapes were outrageously copied from a piece she did, and I was impressed enough to give them a go.  I still like them but don't think they'll find their way into my journals regularly, they're just not authentically "me" somehow, but you only find that out by experimenting.

The flowers (or are they cactii?) are done with Promarkers, as is the background below.  The markers aren't the best medium for covering a large area, but they sort of workm and I wasn't too worried about getting a perfect finish on the page because I knew I was going to write over this.  I do absolutely love lime green and blues together but maybe that's just me?

So then came the writing - which as I've explained came directly out of a conversation with a friend.  Then as ever I laid down the basic lettering before going back and fancying it up.

And all that was left to do was add doodly dots and so on ....  which of course, I did!

The result is interesting but as I said, probably not something I would revisit just because it owes so much more to Teesha than myself, and that's not the way I want to make art.  Some techniques - like the wormhole doodling also learned from her - become part of you because it instinctively feels right and/or you just LOVE the effect.  This process of self discovery and sincere imitation is all part of learning and growing, and you have to try things out in order to know what works for you.  I'd be pleased and proud if anybody copied something I did - as long as they credited me with the original idea!

Anyway, like I said, we all mess up sometimes, some more than others, but the main thing is to LEARN from what we do, right or wrong.  And I have.  Just don't ever think that I can't make lots of new mess-ups because I can and do .....

PS My stats show that 260 visitors looked at my last post, yet only a handful commented.  This is just to say that it means a great deal to me to know that you're out there and that my blogging is helpful to you .... especially on the days when it seems like too much effort to keep going with it.  So please, say hi now and again just so's I know I'm not talking to myself.  Tell me what you like or what you might want to see more or even less of!

WAKE UP ...

 

I'm struck how very differently this page ended up from its early beginnings - I do love it when that happens and you end up not going in the direction you thought you might!  In fact I was having a conversation with my other half on quite a serious subject in the middle of this, which might account for a swerve going on in my mind?

Anyway, thought I would show more of my process with this.  The blue background is acrylic paint on top of gesso, which I then splodged with a baby wipe to give this textured look.  I'm moving away from using collage sheets and enjoying using (free!) bits and pieces cut from magazines, found circulars etc.  What I don't like is shiny paper, and I rarely use the stuff - but then again my heroine Teesha Moore uses lots of it, although I think she gives her work a coat of gel medium when its finished so that its kind of shiny anyway.

My prejudice against shiny paper means that I am always searching for matte images - and more and more circulars (and even some magazines) seem to be going in that direction.  This was a Fairtrade flyer which I'd finished with, and I liked the simple teardrop shapes and wanted to use them.  I save stuff like this in my collage box.

Then I got out a stencil to make the background more interesting - and this is what I use, a sponge dabber which goes on your finger and a water based ink pad.  It works for me, and I never had a lot of luck with paint and stencils, it always bleeds and makes a mess!

I knew when I started that what I wanted to do was some zentangle style doodling on the teardrop shapes, which as you can see below worked out well.  I also added some stamps and the headline cut from another flyer (local estate agents paper).  The message to wake up originally concerned a completely different subject, but my conversation with the old man send me in another direction.  (He came and peered over my shoulder at about this point).

And this is how it all ended up, a result I'm pleased with because once again I've stretched myself and tried something new.  I like it.  You can see from the pictures above and below that I outlined the teardrops using my Posca paint pens and added more pink to balance the page out.  My preferred pen for the doodling is a Pigma Micron, which I have in a number of thicknesses.

Only just noticed that I've virtually obliterated the stencilling, but I never worry about that, putting down different layers and then covering them up is all part of the process!

TEESHA STYLE ...

 

Teesha Moore was one of my earliest influences in my art journalling, and I still LOVE her work even though her style is very different to my own.  I'm a member of her Artstronauts Club, and have been watching videos of her putting pages together.  I'm always trying to challenge myself to work in different ways and try out new techniques, and this is the page that resulted from spending so much online time with Teesha!

The background is pretty much my usual - Caran D'Ache Neocolour II crayons, still my most favourite thing to use.  What was different for me was going to my stash of magazine cut outs and rather than looking for images or words, just looking at colour and patterns, and pulling out things I liked.  That was how I ended up with this corner piece, and the "tombstone" or possibly "teeth" fragments along the bottom!

I did like working in that way and will probably do it again, because it fitted with my sense of intuition, just going with the flow and see what turns up.  So then I pulled out more scraps I just happened to like and this was the result - not typical of my style but I liked it.  My only regret is that these shiny magazine pages are difficult to photograph because they catch the light.  I'm wondering if I should make a collage sheet out of fragments I really like, then I can print them myself on matte paper and lose the shine?

Another thing I like about Teesha's work is that she makes the art first, and then fits the lettering into whatever space happens to be left over.  I like that - and it challenges my besetting sin of always trying to write in straight lines!  It can be a pain in the neck being instinctively neat and tidy ... a good quality in many areas of life, but NOT when it comes to art journalling.  However, in my defence I would say that I have genuinely worked at learning to let go and splodge paint about with something approaching abandon .... sometimes.

So here is the finished article and I love it!  I love how bright it is, how random and yet connected (I couldn't totally let go of colours that matched/toned) and it felt good to work in this way.  I often say to people just starting out on this journey - don't be afraid to use other people's ideas and techniques, or even to outright copy!  Its all part of exploring and finding your style.  Some things are fun to try out but won't find their way into "your" way of doing things, and others will become part of you.  Feel free to copy anything I do outrageously, but don't forget whenever you do this to credit the original artist and their influence (as I have done here) and to only do so as a way to finding out what works for you.  And above all, HAVE FUN!