My Art, My Altered Book

My screensaver these days here at home is a simple black and white square graphic of some inspiring words from Kurt Vonnegut:

“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.”

Indeed.  So I keep trying.  I am actually setting to put this quote on a mini-canvass and put it up on my desk.  Coming soon.

I’ve been working on my altered book which has been on a semi-break most of the previous week.  I was busy trying to catch up with the Artist Trading Card (ATC)  swaps and work has totally exhausted me at the end of the day.  I even left the book at home most days knowing I wouldn’t have the energy nor the time to do any work on it.

I’ve made up the last two nights, creating this multi-page doodled flower.  It’s been tricky cutting the pages but I figured I can always trim it smoother.  The layout is not quite finished but I’ve worked down to the final two-spread background page.  I just need to finish the doodled petals.  I’ve also switched to using Sharpie Ultra Fine Point Permanent Markers instead of my usual V5 signpens.  I’ve noticed that the signpen ink doesn’t dry completely when written over acrylic paint, and so far, the sharpie permanent marker has not stained the other page it closes against.

I have been making progress and I know I’ve been saying that I will start journaling and writing my happy stories, but I haven’t had the chance just yet.  That’s one reason the section devoted to my altered book here in the blog has lain dormant.

Soon.

Art Journal Every Day: Believe

I picked up some old newspapers and tried creating this flower by doodling irregular circles using a purple highlighter which I later smudged with a wet paintbrush.  After it dried, I doodled over with a black fine point sign pen.  I tried to be as free form as I can with the whole piece, cutting in an abstract fashion as well.  The leaves and the stem were more deliberate after I found a rather huge graphic in blue and green which I used and then pasted to an extra sheet and then painted in outline with green watercolor.  For the background, I picked a plain section of the newspaper which I painted in blue, pasted on to a support/backing sheet and then I trimmed and then created my collage.

The word art came much, much later as I couldn’t decide what exactly I wanted to put there.  BELIEVE somehow came naturally as I just sat and reflected on what one word I would want to put on t his particular piece, my favorite to date.  I tried to find scripture about how God takes care of the flowers and so we must not worry about how He takes care of us, but I found it a little over reaching to actually put that in.  The word art was LetterPress Inverted font printed onto a brown bag, colored by a blue highlighter.

Thus ends my January, and on to the next challenge, where, I hope to create 28 hearts.