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Mixed Media View of the Backyard: Expanding Your Visual Vocabulary
It’s always a great idea to take a moment and look out the window. Our neighbors at the back of our yard have a lush growth of ferns at this time of the year. I turned the page in my journal and sketched on this pre-painted background—the verso page background was in the same vein […]
IFJM: Sometimes Projects Creep Up On You
OK, so the other day I posted about the importance of finishing projects. I included some documents I’d created to help people working through previous International Fake Journal Month public celebrations. You can see that post at this link. Of course as soon as the post was set to publish I went into the studio […]
Found Some More Grids
Sometimes life can seem very quick, agonizingly slow, and full of all the wrong things—all at the same time. If your life feels like that it’s important to pick up your journal and start writing notes about your life and activities; and to keep drawing (or start drawing if you haven’t already). These activities will […]
Doodling: Let Your Mind Play—Remind It of the Value of Play
I’m often doddle and draw on non-art papers—simply because I’m sitting at my desk working and all that I have immediately around me is office supplies—bond copier paper and Post-It Notes™. (You see both of those types of paper in the first image today.) I wrote earlier this month, and many other times in the […]
In Context: The Difference a Year Makes
The journal reminds us about our lives—what happened on a given day; what questions we’re asking ourselves; what answers we discovered… I thought this glimpse of an interchange between me and Dick, in a happier time, when I still skipped, would bring a smile. Despite the writos—”I careened into a wall.” And “a conversation I […]
Helping Minnesotans
Yesterday I wrote about what is happening in Minnesota. There are a lot of ways individuals can help in this current situation, whether you live in Minnesota or not. In response to my post yesterday a friend who used to live in Minnesota wrote she was going to donate to the Immigrant Defense Network. (This […]
Ink Only? Paint It? Or Let It Go?
Everyday we make choices in our journals. The simplest for me is stop at ink only? Paint over the ink (opaquely or transparently)? Or leave the texture alone all together? We get to make a different, individual decision every time we turn a page in our journal. Long ago I was more strict in my […]
In Context: Thoughts on Visual Note Taking
Visual note taking. We all notice things that matter to us. How much we develop those elements in our drawings…it depends on so many factors. The point is to keep noticing. Page spread in a Strathmore 500 Series Mixed media journal on which I pre-collaged a piece of grey Strathmore charcoal paper that had been […]
In Context: Collage with Text
In April I painted a lot of background textures in a hand-bound journal I’d made with Fabriano Artistico. I’d taped the pages. Painted the textures. Then over the next week I returned to paint or collage on the backgrounds. This is one of my favorites. I admit I wanted to finish the book and couldn’t […]
What Filling a Grid in Our Journals Tells Us
I’ve been sharing a bunch of journal grids lately on the blog. Let’s get right to it—filling a grid in your journal tells you at a glance what is catching your eye in the world. For me, in this grid, it’s obviously noses. Now if you look at one of your grids and you see […]