Fly free and let the paint fly....

Several months ago I was deep into my 2nd altered book journal and was enjoying the painting process but felt totally hemmed in with my style - tight tighter and tightest!!  My watercolour work is realistic and I don't feel a need to change that because I still really enjoy that style.  Taking up art journaling gave me an opportunity to change it up style-wise but I hadn't caught on to the loose bit yet.  I was designing pages with everything in its place and found myself journaling about how tight my work was. After flipping by this half done page - that I detested - I took paint and started applying it with stencils every which way with no end goal in sight.  I ended up with something that pleased me because it looked nothing like my previous pages and I felt I might be on my way to freeing myself up a bit.  I still have a long ways to go and I am thoroughly enjoying the process!!!

I need an ART curfew.....

If I stay up too late working on my art then it takes me hours to settle in to be able to sleep.  Here it is 11pm and I have finished working for the night but my mind is racing with ideas and I know there will be no decent sleep for awhile.  Yikes!  How do you stop your mind from thinking?!! Maybe the first step should be quitting art earlier in the evening ;)

This journal page was much fun to create - it is black Gesso with white Gesso stenciled around the edges - a perfect background for a white Gellyroll pen and one of my favourite doodles - a Mandala.  I drew the Mandala and journaled around the edges while at the Nascar race in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago.  Art journaling - a perfect way to pass the time before the race as far as I am concerned.  I am still working on the white Gesso edges - everytime I have a bright colour on a sponge (and I remember to) I swipe a bit to finish it off.

I am off to calm my mind.....

When I Grow Up.....

When asked as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up - my answer was always "an Artist!!"

Experimenting with collaging and stencilling - this page journaled itself after I glued the old photo down - writing around the edge of the page feels comfortable to me.  We shall see if that trend continues.  I am pretty happy with this page - I didn't overthink the placement of the collaged book pages - I just kind of eyeballed the composition to what felt right. 




When I Grow UP!!

 

First post.....

Here it goes -  my first post as a blogger!!  How exciting!!

let's just get this out of the way and be on our way....

I make writing way more difficult than it needs to be so I am going to attempt to not overthink this and type what I am thinking without doing too much backspacing. 

I am a watercolour artist who is currently obsessed with altered book art journals. Grabbing any and all information I can - I am quickly filling up my altered books with a lot of backgrounds and art - but not a great deal of journaling. My goal is to find my own "style" and to be able to add my thoughts without too much effort.

Please say hello and share your thoughts!!