It’s all about the practice. The more you do, the better you get. No matter what. When I first started out on my creative journey I would set art challenges for myself to help with a daily practice. Juggling small kids and a corporate job it was hard to find the time, but I would carve out at least 10 minutes. The better I got the more time I was able to find.
That’s why I love practicing in art journals. I consider these little books my sandbox to play in. To explore new color palettes or ways to make interesting lines and marks. Or for a quick sketch instead of picking up my phone. To doodle in while hanging out with the family watching a show. You’d be surprised how even 10 minutes a day can spark some creative inspiration for something bigger. I have my next door neighbor growing up to thank for this idea as she told me this when I was 11 years old. Terri is in an incredible professional artist who said if I could do one thing to improve, it’s to sketch 10 minutes a day. It builds up muscle memory in your hands! Check out her gorgeous work - Terri Katz Kasimov, she's one of my biggest inspirations!
I've been playing around in this Ranger Creative Dylusions journal that I love! Main reason is the quality of the paper. It can handle all types of wet and dry mixed media, and I load it up with acrylic inks and paint.
This spread was inspired by my word of the year, FOCUS - and also to Teesha Moore. I was lucky enough to have taken an in-person workshop years ago and she gifted us some of her art journal page printouts to cut up. I've been saving them and I am glad I did!
In my Facebook Creative Community Group I did a demo lesson on an ink splot and how to use that for inspiration for your journal page. It looked like a fish, so I went with it. I used the other side to turn into a path filled with flowers. Finding great collage material out of catalogs, and using Posca paint pens as well as this awesome gold one buy DecoColor - Liquid Gold.
Here's an ink splot but just adding some pen marks to it. Using a fine white acrylic paint pen, or gel pen to just create lines. It's a super meditative way to just relax and make marks!
When I shut my journal one day and reopened it this spread was stuck together (make sure your paints are dry before closing!) so I covered over the torn page with this beautiful dahlia found on the cover of a free local paper. Love it! Maps, art papers and flower catalogs are another good source for journal inspiration.
Hope. Light. Truth. Love. Beauty. So many words come to my mind after watching Amanda Gorman recite her incredible and moving poem, The Hill We Climb, on Inauguration Day. I was glued to my seat hanging on her every word.
Each line in her poem was powerful and poignant. So many brought me to tears, but I was especially touched by this one: “We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it”.
I didn’t expect to be so emotionally moved by the Inauguration ceremony, and I think I cried through most of it. The speeches and the songs, and this beautiful poet laureate delivering her words to our new president. I have been holding on to so much sadness + anxiety this past year over the pandemic, our political mess, and the injustices that so many in our country face. What I feel now for the first time in a long time is HOPE.
xoxo
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