WHERE?

Having lived in vicarages for the last 35 years (mainly old, cold and beyond our means to heat) we've never actually owned a house, and now that we're in our sixties its becoming a concern.  As you know I always work out my worries in my art journal, and that's why I made this page.  There's something about putting things down on paper and naming them that helps to sort them out!

I didn't actually know it was going to be a cri de coeur at the time, but I wanted to make a page in monochrome shades so I began as you see below with a simple coat of grey paint and a spot of gesso on some bubble wrap.  I like to use expensive art materials!

Then I made a border around the page using scraps of this and that, mainly culled from magazines. Again, very expensive collage stuff!  These are the sorts of techniques I go with when I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with a page - just paint a background and put a border around it.  Sometimes it will stay like that for a while ... but I almost always come back to it eventually.

As you can see, at this stage it sort of needed something - so I chose to add some touches of red, and that really livened it up!  I had liked the orangey feather when I stuck it down, but it definitely looks better coloured red with a Promarker - I often use these to change the colours of collage elements.  If I want to blot something out (like a pattern or writing) then my wonderfully opaque posca paint pens are the best for this.

It was coming across the word "where" in my collage cuttings box that produced the cry from the heart "where are we going to live".  Now of course know that I should have faith and trust in God's provision, but sometimes (like most people) I have a bit of a wobble.  That's what happened here.

And then it was a matter of finishing off with the final details.  You might notice that I actually outlined the edge of the border to give it more definition, and I used small black dots as shading. This is actually quite a simple page, technically speaking, but its not always necessary to use ambitious techniques - the main thing for me is getting the thoughts and feelings down on paper.

I am now back to trusting Herself Upstairs for the future, but I have been mentioning lately that something with no stairs would be a great blessing ......

EXPOSED ... ?

  

This page is very recent and I made it because I'd been inspired by some black and white (well shades of grey really) journals I'd seen online.  It seemed a very interesting way to work and although I didn't want to do a whole journal this way, I chose to try it out for the last page in the current one

You'll have seen my Modigliani ladies before - and not least the ones from the accidentally copied in black and white page.  I sourced the images on Google and made a collage sheet with them, which I now copy at need.  That first non colour page was a happy accident that I've had a lot of use from.

So with these ideas in mind I made a monochrome copy of another of my home-made collage sheets and used that here.  The background is a simple coat of grey acrylic paint, with borders cut from my collage sheet.  I then went on to add bits and pieces like the bunting shapes at the top, and the clock, and then of course my Modigliani lady - I'd avoided using this one because she never seemed to fit before with what I was doing ....

But once she was in place on the page - at this stage just an exercise in working monochrome - I decided she looked as exposed as I sometimes feel, and there was my subject matter!

It is my mission to be brave and fearless with myself in the journals I make - after all anything else would be pointless wouldn't it?  I then try to be equally brave about the ones I share (almost all but not quite) in the hope that this might help somebody else, or speak to them in some way.

I'm really pleased with the finished piece, although I did miss bold colours a bit, but nonetheless its an interesting way to work now and again - the grey might be particularly appropriate for difficult days or sad ones?

There will be a few more pages from this A5 journal to share, but at the moment I'm doing exploratory work in a new size, and loving it!  My new journal is SQUARE, which gives me just that bit more scope, and the paper is so much better quality.  Its approximately 8 x 8, so it still sits comfortably on the shelf, but the question now is whether I buy more of these or bite the bullet and try making some of my own?

And of course a number of people asked after the adopted pussycat, and the news is GOOD.  William, as we've named him, has settled in amazingly quickly.  He and Stanley are on their way to be firm friends and enjoy taking turns to chase each other around the house.  Apparently their relationship will be less combative once William is neutered - he's so very distinctively male at the moment that my beloved calls him "fluffynuts". Here's a picture of an early meeting between the boys - William is the black one.

Just noticed that the cats are also monochrome!!  What an artistic household we are ....

Feeling like a DRONE ....

 

I think the text is probably self-explanatory here!  It really was one of those days when I felt like a person who was putting nothing in, and just taking from the rest of the world.  I get like that sometimes, I guess a lot of us do?  Anyway, my way of dealing with such moments is to journal about it and try to work through it.

But it should be obvious why I began by laying down a dull shade of flat beige paint, and adding even more around the edges in the form of washi tape - these are Tim Holtz I think?  I do actually like these colours that I think of as "vintage", and it was an interesting exercise to work in such a monochrome palette.

I really love this stamp of a rather glum looking person, I've had it for ages but she comes out regularly.   I think its by Teesha Moore, and of course she was perfect to encapsulate the negative mood I was in!  The black edge really seemed to add something at this stage, and was achieved by simply dragging the thick end of a promarker fairly roughly around the borders of the tape, with no attempt at my usual tidiness.

This page is in two halves I suppose - you can see the first half below, where I simply put down the way I was feeling.  Just stating how you feel is therapeutic in itself - recognition and acknowledgement of what's actually going on inside you is powerful, and the first step to challenging negative emotions and asking yourself what the truth is.  We all make statements about ourselves (I'm useless, nobody will ever love me, I'm not good at that, etc etc) which simply may not be true and should be challenged.  A psychologist I once worked with used to ask me "where is the EVIDENCE for that"?  In other words, what can you bring to validate your assertion that you're useless waste of space or a drone?  Very often there actually isn't any.

So that's where the second half of the exercise came in - recognising that there actually wasn't a lot of evidence for this assertion.  In fact it became clear as I thought about how I spend my time that, even though I may not leave the house as much as other people, nonetheless I'm not sitting here doing nothing ... but actually striving in my own way to make a difference and share the things I learn.

And then it turned out that I WAS making a real contribution (OK maybe not with the singing) and that the world might even be a better place because of things I do?  Well, I'd like to think so, and it IS what I aim for ... with varying degrees of success.

The lettering as always is done by starting with a simple shape, as you can see in picture 3, and then gradually adding thickness and curving edges.  The white makes quite a strong addition too, and like I say I do actually rather like this (admittedly dull) palette of colours.  And I felt a whole lot pinker when I'd done this .... which is after all the whole point of the exercise!

If you have days like this - give it a try?  You might even end up feeling better, and even if you don't you'll have got something off your chest!