What are you up to Wednesday - part 41 (woyww 144)

Another Workdesk Wednesday coming up! It's odd how these Wednesday post have become a steady thing on my blog. But then again I love looking at other people's desks too. If you want to see more desks go to Julia's and you'll find a whole selection of them. Maybe you'd even like to join the fun!

Here's the state of the art at my studio table right now:

I know...when you look at my Wednesday desks it always looks as if the ribbons and circles are all I do these days. It's not. It's just that I usually end a studio session with one of them and so that's what you can find on my table when I'm not working and that's when I usually take my photograph. I either just finished one or just started one. In this case I just started one and need to finish it before I continue on my current big project, which is....ROD Square! Yay! Here are the first pages of that journal.

Now I have finally finished prepping the atlas, also know as the Moon Journal,  and will probably start using it sometime this week, I can devote some time to decorating the journal that will most likely be used after that one is filled (plan for the future people!). It's going to be a square remains of the day style journal (hence the most original name I could think of).

I have already sewn the pages that will form the signatures, but before I put the signatures together  I want to decorate all the pages as much as possible and it's easier to put the pages under a sewing machine and work on them when they're still seperate. I'm even doing some penwork on them which I have never done 'up front'. That way when it's finished I will only have to do my journal writing to make the pages complete (although knowing myself I will probably still add some odds and ends even then). It's a bit of a different approach than my usual one, where I just have a little color or a few elements on the page and do the rest of the decorating as I go when actually using it as a journal.

Now keep in mind that the final spreads when the book is constructed will not look like they appear now because they will have other pages next to them and you will only see one side of the current spreads in the final journal. The journal will be 8x8 inches. The decorating of all these seperate pages will probably keep me busy for months to come, but that's okay, the Moon Journal has 70 spreads in it and it will take months for me to fill that one up, so I have the time.

Hoping you are all having an artsy and wonderful Wednesday!

Book review - Raw Art Journaling - Quinn McDonald

Title: Raw art journaling - making meaning, making art
Author: Quinn McDonald
Info: 128 p. - 2011
Rating: 7.5 / 10

 


Notes:
Anybody who just enters the world of art journaling may become completely overwhelmed by what's out there, in blogs, in books, in techniques and in examples. You might start to think you can't be an art journaler unless you have an art supply store full of supplies to work with and put layer upon layer of paint in your journal.

As wonderful as magazines like Art Journaling and most art journaling books are (and I love them all and own most of them) they rarely practice what they preach. They claim that in a journal anything goes, that you really don't need many supplies, that ugly pages are okay, etcetera etcetera, but what do you see when you look at them? Intricate layered and often gorgeous pages! Beautiful, but quite intimidating too.

Quinn McDonalds Raw Art Journaling is like a breath of fresh air in the art journaling books genre. It takes us right back to the basics of why we journal in the first place: namely to express ourselves. She gives very simple and wonderful exercises and ideas that really can be done with just a few supplies and she focuses more on the expression than on the making of a pretty page. In fact the book focuses on how imperfection is all part of the game. It's all about meaning.

What I also love about the book (as an avid journal writer) is that she gives attention to a thing often overlooked by most journaling books: text. She gives way to incorporate words, poetry and writing into your journal and even to make the writing a visual aspect of your page. But there's also a section about working with imagery like photographs and about doodling with lines and shapes. In fact it was this book that inspired my ribbon and circle drawings from my last post.

I would highly recommend this book to beginners and to those who feel overwhelmed by the mixed media aspect of art journaling. You really don't have to jump through hoops. You just have to get real.

Ribbons and circles - from the Studio Book

You've seen them often appearing in my Wednesday posts, but I figured it was time to do a specific post on my ribbons and circles. After all I'm doing them a lot lately and this blog should really reflect all my artsy stuff.

The idea for these drawings was inspired by Quinn MacDonald who does a very different type of ribbon drawings in her book Raw Art Journaling. I mostly do them in my Studio Book, a sketchbook that lives in my studio and that holds my try outs of material, my ideas and drawings and stuff that I do to pass the time or unwind from things.

Circles and ribbons are perfectly fitted to unwind from things. They are easy to do, colorful and relaxing. What more does an artsy girl want? I've said it before, but it really is like doing your own coloring book. It requires very little planning and only a few materials and somehow it's a very satisfying exercise. I'm not even sure why.

The way I do them is usually by starting out with drawing the ribbons in pencil. I will then draw them over with a drawing pen, usually a brush pen. The trick is to decide which ribbons overlap the others so the picture makes sense, well, as much as images like these can make sense in the first place.

After that I take a cirlce template and draw in the circles. The circles can go on top of the ribbons or underneath them. You have to be careful not to cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. It's a tricky business and I have made mistakes at times.What I do when I make a mistake with the black lines is that I go over them with a white paintmarker. I have to do that a couple of times otherwise the line will still show through the marker.

The best part is the coloring in of the drawings. I use my gouache paint box for that. The colors come straight out of the box and I limit myself to the bright colors mostly. I try to use all the bright colors at least once. There's no plan as to how I fill in the colors. The ribbons usually consist of two colors to show off how they twist and turn a little more.

It's nice to experiment with this concept. How many different drawings can you make with such a simple idea? Change the size of the circles, put them together or apart, how many ribbons, do I color in the background or not (I do like it better in white)? Do I use just one page or cover an entire spread with the drawing?  It's amazing how much can still be done with such a basic concept.

I think I will be doing many more still. I'm nowehere near finished with this. I have no idea what they are supposed to mean or lead to except bringing me some colorful joy, but that's about the best purpose there is right? I hope I've inspired you to go with a simple idea and see how you can vary on the same theme just by playing with shapes and colors.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!

Award Attack! ;-) (A little reminder of my no award policy)

Yesterday I had the honor to be offered two blog awards in one day by two lovely fellow bloggers. I hadn't had any of that happen in almost a year, so I thought the button on my sidebar that says "Award Free Zone" was working. Apparently not so. ;-) So I have moved the button up and now it shows the moment you go to my blog and I'm leaving this little extra reminder to all you generous award givers out there.

Here it goes:
I appreciate the positive idea behind awards. I appreciate it even more that you think my blog is worthy of one. However if you give me an award I will refuse it kindly. That's because the whole concept of awards is just not my cup of tea. You can read all about my reasons for not accepting any awards over here.

I hope you all understand. The most wonderful appreciation any of you can give me is through your lovely comments and e-mails or by mentioning me to someone else or praising me to kingdom come on your own blog (haha). I love getting feedback on my blog and my artsy stuff even if you don't agree with what I say or do. It's the interaction that I love about the blogosphere.

Thanks for listening and please give your awards to someone who will jump for joy at receiving them. There's plenty of people who do. They deserve them and will appreciate them so much more than me!

What are you up to Wednesday - part 40 (woyww 143)

Can you believe that this is my 200th blogpost? I know, I can't believe it either! I can't believe I've kept it up and even feel like keeping it up for at least 2000 more. When I first started this blog I was so apprehensive about it and now I can't imagine my life without it. So here's my 200th post and my 40th Wednesday post, which is pretty cool all in itself ;-)

Here's my desk as I left it last night:

Yes, that's another ribbon and circle drawing in my Studio Book. I can't seem to get enough of them. They are so relaxing and it's interesting to see how even such a simple concept can be executed in so many different ways.

I did the drawing as a little relaxing celebration, because I just finished a very long term work, namely the prepping of my second altered atlas! I'm so happy it's finally ready for use. It took so long and it became a bit of drag really. But now it's ready to go as soon as my In Between Book is filled up which should be within the next two weeks.  Here's how my next journal looks now:

I have called it The Moon Journal and not the Second Altered Atlas, even though that is what it is. ;-) I've named it after the images on the cover which come from inside the atlas. When prepping an existing book for a journal I take out about half the pages and this family atlas had some wonderful images and maps in it.
The front cover has an image of a view of the Earth as seen from the Moon's surface. I decorated the black sky with metallic pencils.

The back has a map of the Moon on it where I colored in the sections with the same pencils. The pictures are bordered with duct tape and then the tape is decorated with paint markers and a glaze pen. The markers in themselves write well on the duct tape, but the color does come of when it's scratched so I decided to cover the whole thing in sticky back plastic. That way the journal is fully protected.

On the back there's also a quote from the song "Orange Moon" by Erykah Badu, which is such a sweet little song and it seemed to fit the theme of my journal cover perfectly.

I enjoyed working on the cover, but the really big job of course was the inside of the journal. About 70 spreads were left after I took out half the paper and all needed to be covered in gesso first and then given some color with acrylic paint. I chose simple craft paints this time.

Most of the spreads were done with baby wipes (a technique I think I first saw done by Traci Bunkers and that leaves your hands very dirty indeed), but some also have been done with a brush or with credit cards or a combination of all three. Not one spread looks the same. Here's a sample of the inside of the Moon Journal.

I'm happy with it and I look forward to journaling in it, but for now just the idea of having ever to prep another book this way makes me want to run and hide. It's. A. Lot. Of. Work. ;-) It will be worth it though, I remember how much I enjoyed using the Altered Atlas and I'm sure I will love this baby too.

I hope you enjoyed this peek in my next journal and I hope you are all having an artsy Wednesday!