24 October 2011 Journal Page

I just spent the morning having a conversation with a good friend (also a student who has taken tons of my classes over the years) about layering and creating art journal pages. She struggles with it (as do many people.) She said that I make it look easy. It's not easy. It can be a struggle. I don't love every page that I do and I'm okay with that.

To me, the most important part in the act of art journaling is the unfolding. It's the process of first putting down a base (be it paint or paper or whatever) and then adding another layer on top of it, and then stopping to ponder, "What if?" and then exploring that new idea. Re-working, pushing, pulling, putting together different elements that you like to create a cohesive page.

The final act for me is always adding my journaling to the page. I step back and ask myself, "Have I said everything that I've wanted to say here?" If so, then I know I'm done. If not, I'll push and pull some more with the page (maybe stepping away from it and looking back to see if it needs more color, texture, or even written words.)

The thing is, I am not after perfect pages. Not in any way. I'm after the experience of what it feels like to open up, to express myself both visually and in the written word onto a page. As I've stated before, I don't love every page that I do. If I don't love a page and I've done all I can, instead of ripping it out, I'll either try to rework it some more or just turn the page and move on as I have a whole book to fill.

Your artwork will evolve and change just as you will with time. The more we discover, learn and open ourselves up to new experiences, the more we change. It's very interesting to go back and look at your work from a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, etc... It's all different. It's all "good". It's all part of the process!

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A quick reminder that I am teaching at Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale, AZ THIS weekend. I am super excited to be teaching these workshops. I have three brand spanking new workshops (two of which had their debut in Oakland a couple of weekends ago) that I am eager to share. I am always excited about taking my students (both beginner to advanced) to another level and I feel that these workshops are pushing them to approach their work in a new way. (I only teach what I love and am most passionate about and I LOVED seeing what the students did in Oakland with these ideas, techniques and prompts.) More information on the classes this weekend can be found here. I hope to see YOU there!

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Blog Love:
New Drawn and Quarterly Books to Look Forward to
For those of you interested in Pinterest, I added a few new pins yesterday
Multi-media Book Love
Murmuration-this is pretty frigging cool. If you click on one link, click here and watch this video
Easy Little Bread Recipe
Holiday Ideas (yes, it's that time...)
Lynda Barry on Copying and Tracing