Many of you will know that paint doesn't seem to be my natural medium, but I do keep trying to learn to love it, so that's what was happening here. It may be purely a matter of laziness, in that I want to dive straight into a page and not have to gesso it first etc etc., but whatever I had some fun splodging paint about here. I did a background of quite diluted paint (these are acrylics let down with water) and then used a baby wipe among other things to add more layers.
Then because it was one of those times when I was just making a background and seeing where it led, I dug about in my collage materials and added a few images. Although I forgot to photograph it at that stage, I used a technique I often resort to of asking myself what's the one word I want to put on this page? This time it was "grateful" and so I wrote it in the middle - having learned the hard way that it rarely works to stick it at the top.
After that the creative juices just started to flow ... and although I do know that my writings here sound very Pollyanna-ish I am unapologetic about that! It seems really important to me to regularly engage in the Count Your Blessings exercise - and all the more so when you're a bit down and dejected. Its frighteningly easy to lock into a downward spiral in which you can only see negatives, but I find when you look for them that there are ALWAYS good things to celebrate and give thanks for.
You may notice that this is a page I made back in March ... when we were still hoping for a summer! I haven't been doing a lot of journalling lately - it goes like that with me, I'll work all day every day in my journals for a while, and then I end up needing a change of activity. I've got a sewing project on the go at the moment, but in a few days I'll return to my journal with renewed enthusiasm.
Sometimes I wish I was the sort of person who could concentrate on just doing one thing well - like sewing or making cards etc., or stick to just one medium, but I seem to be somebody who
needs diversity and lots of different materials to play with. Maybe you're the same?
