Some art journaling on a sunday

Two days of travel, taking classes for work and living in a hotel in a beautiful city (Groningen) that I hardly got to see for lack of time. One day of just getting over all that (boy, I needed to sleep late!) And today I am finally back at my work table to actually make something! I don't know what it is about trips to the main land but they totally mess up my system and biological clock. Living on an island has its perks, but the long travel time to get anywhere can be tiresome. That doesn't mean I don't like traveling. Au contraire! I love being on the ferry and the trains. It gives me so much time to read and write. And I love staying in hotels too and when your employer pays for it it's even better, haha. Still I am glad to be back home  and get back into the art groove. And that I will have plenty of time for the coming days, because I have a week off from work. Yay!

So today I worked on two spreads for the life-made-by-hand-class I'm taking. It was fun, but I do need to get used to this type of journaling.

Here's spread number one:

I'm afraid the picture's not so great, too much reflection from the flash and the spread is too big for my scanner. But it gives you an idea. The prompt for this spread was "What are your gifts?". I made a little list and talked about the responsibility that seems to come with gifts. After all what use are our gifts if we don't DO anything with them?

And here's the second spread:

Again the flash thing. Sigh.
Here the prompt was "What are you not letting go of?". I talked about self doubt and how by sticking to it, you can totally sabotage yourself and your work. I am slowly starting to learn that making art is something into itself. It's not up to me to decide whether it is any good or not and definitely not if I am any good or not. Being doubtful about our art is the job of critics an onlookers. I am here to make stuff, not to judge it. Doubting my art making skills will prevent me from making any and that is a luxury I cannot afford, because I love to make art and want to do it for the rest of my life whether it sucks or not.

I also learned a lot from being around photographers. Have you ever seen one of those contact sheets? They are chock full of little photo's  the photographer's been shooting for hours on end and in the end only one (if it was a good day) gets picked for actual use. I think fine arts is just the same. You make a lot of junk and every now and then something really good comes from it. Or not. But who cares? It's the doing that's important. The cliché is true I am afraid: it is all about the process.