successful spilling

another late post. however, i feel rather accomplished, i have "spilled" daily and posted the results almost daily since the night i cleaned my desk off.

i've been busy tonight and i should be sleeping but i spent a relatively lazy sunday cat napping on the couch and watching football because i wasn't feeling well for the most part. so, now i'm not tired.

i have a few classes i've paid for and made very little headway on in the past two years, but i really didn't feel like taking on those challenges tonight. tonight i decided to tip-toe my way into a free class offered by the very awesome tamara laporte called art, heart, & healing in hopes of providing my brain with a much needed refresher of many very basic techniques.

well, here's what happened.
but first, for fun...

mmmmm a brand new knead-able eraser. you know you want to smell it!

the beginning of the first project requires one to write down all the things your inner critic says on one of the two pages of the spread. all those nasty hurtful things that make me feel a whole lot less like a barefoot glittery princess. i've shared the spread but only after covering the page with gesso, because, while i love to share my art with people (because if i can do it, so can you), i am much less keen on the idea of sharing just how nasty and mean my own inner critic can be. plus, the idea here is to write it down, get it out of your head, forgive the inner critic, and then cover it up with paint and make something beautiful out of it.

so, onward!

yay for putting the smack down on the inner critic.

opposite page of the spread is where i start my drawing. i am supposed to draw a girl that represents me. represents. she will not look anything like me.

ugh, i haven't drawn a face in over 3 years.

face complete, sorta...

i had A LOT of trouble with the nose, this trouble did not relent.

i really like to draw stylized and whimsical girls, so that is where i am headed.

yeah, mitten hands. what about it? i can barely draw a nose and you want hands? pshya!

so, my watercolor crayons, acrylics and i just aren't getting along whilst i shade this face. time for some... fun!

one of my FAVORITE mediums, prismacolor pencils and a blender.

after much more back and forth on the face, i reached a stopping point that i was relatively happy with. now you can see the direction i am going in.

done! (for tonight)

sure, she is far from perfect and there is A LOT of work to be done still. but i am a happy girl at the moment and my inner critic has been (mostly) quiet all night.

the post-dated-post

today flew by. i didn't make much progress at all and i forgot to post, so forgive the post-dated-post.

added more stamped stars and circles, this time in permaink. i didn't let my images done in water soluble ink really dry before gesso-ing so i lost most of them. these wont be going anywhere.

i decided, go big or go home, or whatever.

layer of blue acrylic.

now THAT, is what i was looking for.

let the blue dry... some. sprayed it with a water bottle and wiped some away.

my art journaling is really about exploration right now. exploration of my insides, exploration of techniques, exploration of cause and effect.

so, though i liked what was going on i slapped some white paint down on top of it, topped with some stenciling in red.

yeah, i dunno. this came out of left field.

wipe down = successfully grungified.

i really feel like this spread has gone full on fourth of july. *sigh* what did i really expect in using red, white, and blue...

i'm really going to have to decide if this spread is done and usable for something independence day related or if i am going to have to keep going with it and take it somewhere else.

so, i reached a stopping point on it but i wasn't done.

 look, purple acrylics in random places.

purple makes me very happy.

and it was time to add something else to this one...

watercolor crayons ftw!

i like it.

something about it just makes me happy.

oh, and... gesso.

yep. done. 

little bear

13 years and september 11th never gets any easier.

however, i have another reason to dislike this date now.

my little bear passed away today. he had been our loyal family pet for 15 years.
he'll be missed so very much.

oddly enough, today was also the first day in literally years that i cracked my art journal and spilled. i had to paint to keep busy because i did not see my little bear this morning as i usually do in the back yard. i've had a feeling all day that something had happened to him. i couldn't find him anywhere in the backyard so i knew he had escaped to the very back yard where the bushes are taller then i am.  my love didn't want me to go out there by myself. he said it was dangerous. spiders, snakes, weeds with pollen that will make me break out on touch. i suspect it had more to do with the fact that he didn't want me to find my dog the way we knew i would. he also knows me well enough to know that my heart breaks when i lose one of my little animals.

he convinced me to wait until he got home. so, i had to stay busy.

he is digging my little bear a grave now that i can see from my kitchen window, i'll still be able to see him every morning. so very sweet of him do this for me.

so, today i turned this page...

this was my very favorite page, painted with a bright shimmery red paint that i no longer have.

into this with a little gesso and watercolor crayon, then i proceeded to copy down lyrics from a song my son introduced me to. i'm not a huge silversun pickups fan, but he is. and he never fails to tell me when he's found a super good song. this is circadian rhythm (last dance).

i hated this page as soon as i finished the watercolor crayons and gesso. HATED. what had i done to the brilliant red page? maybe i should have left it alone...

more gesso...

still hating on this page!

stamped images in permanent black ink...   

nope, still don't like it.

purple acrylics... 

now this, i like! of course i do, it's purple.

more stamping. these images are some of my standard background fodder, and they are stamped in water soluble ink here so when i apply gesso... 

who doesn't love stars and circles?

they blur and mute.

we are certainly getting there...

doodle... spirals are some of my very favorite things to draw.

at this point, i was just desperately trying to stay busy.

and this is where i stopped today. my love had come home and was able to find my little bear where he had laid down to rest.

it needed orange.

i plan to finish this spread for bear, perhaps with a she art doll and her dog or something similar.