Firsties- Early birds and Night-owls

My first page(s) in my altered book/art journal. I decided to dedicate it to my disfunctional relationship with the earth’s rotation.

I am glad I’ve started, and yet I have mixed feelings about this page. Its not at all what I envisioned (although by now I aught to know to expect that). One of the biggest challenges, aside from the gesso issues, was working in the double page spread. This is a first for me. I’m still not certain I’ve really pulled it off cohesively. I solicit any advice, be it specific to this page, or just in general. It just looks either too balanced, or too heavy on either side, but either way, as if it doesn’t match. How does one counteract that? I’m not entirely sure it’s done.  It doesn’t help that it’s about 394 times uglier on the computer. Imagine more pastel blues throughout, and imagine the edges with more blue, less shadow. Mostly, just imagine it less ugly. (edit: blues are fixed, mostly)

I apologize for the terrible picture quality. I just remembered that the reason I’ve been working small for so long is because then it fits on the scanner. Being that the whole book is big, photographing the pages is going to be an ongoing learning experience, and an unpleasant one at that, I suspect. (edit: outside in bright sunlight helped some, but still not great. )

Resolutions

I’ve never been good at attatching significance to a particular day, or month. I don’t engage in “New Years” resolutions, but rather, I make them on an ongoing basis, throughout the year. Sadly, I keep them much less often than I make them, but sometimes, they result in tiny revolutions in my life, and those few tiny revolutions make it worth it. Now that I am home, with no job, and too much time on my hands, I’ve been thinking often about what I want to do. Some things have come to mind more frequently than others, more forcefully.

• to write, even just a snippet, on a daily basis.*
• to do some form of art, or something contributing to art, on a daily basis.
• to pray for those I care about– not for specific ailments or challenges, but just to thank God for placing them in my life, even if many are no longer a part of my life.
• to engage in small scale adventures from time to time.
• to encounter something beautiful each day, be it a passage in a book, a work of art, a poem, something in the world around me, a soulful song, anything. I want to experience beauty, and lock it away inside of me, as a shield against the ugliness in the world.

* Realisticly, daily means something more like most days of the week, but its easier to achieve if I just tell myself its daily….

Another Addition to my (Frighteningly Long) Wish List…

I’m not sure if its a symptom of all artists, all humanity, or just me, but I am always finding myself wanting something more (often, many somethings.) Right now, my current object of longing is Stampington & Company’s new Art Journaling Magazine. I’ve browsed one of their other publications, the Somerset Studios magazine, and enjoyed several of the articles, so when I saw this, I was thrilled. The examples look beautiful, and I’m really curious to see what sorts of articles and techniques are in there. Really, the price isn’t bad at all either. However, I have exactly $0.98 in my bank account right now. Its not in my budget. Perhaps when I have a budget again though. I imagine I will give in eventually. My will power really isn’t as strong as it should be.