Art Journal Every Day: Just Be

Sometimes even I surprise myself. No zentangling! But still doodling wordart and all…

I like this Art Journal Every Day entry because I was able to do so many things with it — and I like that I wrote a ton of journaling as well. I had the general idea of what I wanted it to be — I wanted it to be about just being quiet, just sitting still, not doing anything, and letting the thoughts, messages and feelings just come. And come they did.

It’s not something that I often choose to do out of my own choice — but I often wander off, just leave everything blank, and just sit… or just be. Sometimes, even as I get ready for bed, I just stare at the ceiling, listening to the humming of the airconditioner. I will admit there was a time when I was afraid of the silence because I was afraid of what I would hear then — but these days, I wait, I listen. As I wrote in the journal entry, sometimes even when I do something routine like washing the dishes, I lose myself into listening to “being”. And those are the times when I hear my happy, sad, painful, joyful and silly thoughts coming out.

At times I can be sitting down in my work area with my beads and my tools, or painting in the kitchen with my watercolor and creating backgrounds. Even in doing that, I’m really not doing anything. Or perhaps I am doing something but I am listening.

HOW I DID IT:

I am sharing my how-to not because I consider this a real work of art, but rather because I did these pieces in a basic, non-artistic way. I want to show those of you who, like myself, admire the works of the real artists and wish that we could come up with those works of art ourselves that yes, IT CAN BE DONE!!

– I painted the swirls background using regular watercolor, starting with the swirls, then filling it in with a lighter color. (Orange swirls with a yellow filling) and chose a darker but muted color like sienna for the background. (I have to admit, I found it rather childish and too playful, I just didn’t imagine I’d be able to create this layout with the background I originally had!)

– Found this great photo in a magazine supplement which was in heavyweight glossy paperstock. The back of the cover adhered easily using Elmer’s glue. But the word art in front was a problem.

– Had some spare color copies of a previous work where I had put in Angelo’s scribbling, and I used that as background paper for a plain watercolor painted “JUST BE”. Cut it out, and since glue would probably not adhere permanently to the glossy cut out, I taped over with clear packing tape. You don’t even see it!

– Painted the outline of the figure in crimson, red orange and orange progressively.

– I did “No rules” journaling, so if you look closely, some words are broken with no hyphens.

– I rendered the word art in free style lettering and colored them initially with Country Twill which is a khaki-like shade in matte, then chose three words to paint over with Pearl White. Then I decided to fill in the spaces with more word art in plain black using my regular signpen.

If you want to see more of my Art Journal, please click here, or you can always choose my Art Journal Every Day page from the list on the top left of the blog page.

I invite you to view the Flickr Group dedicated to this endeavor by clicking here, and be inspired to create your own art journal. (Artistic talent optional.)