A Reason for Art Journaling
One thing I've always been comfortable with is making. I'm a maker. An artist. A creative. I think that was always relatively easily; I can build things in my mind through pretty specific visuals (and recall them a long time later as well). I can see the steps I need to take when making things, but struggle with translating those steps into relationships. I can connect over movie lyrics and teasing jokes, music and comfort zone shared topics.
But learning about people? That's where I can easily fall short. I don't know the questions to ask, I don't always remember to even try. I can over-talk through my insecurities and take up all the conversation time. I sometimes feel like I don't communicate too well. And I have been seeing that translate back to my creating as well. I feel lost right now, especially, unsure of what message I'm trying to relate, how to go about doing it, or if I even know how.
So in the meantime, I'm going back to the kind of making that is lighter for me. Art journaling. It might sound deep and personal, but often it's just pages filled with experimentation, collage of papers I've made or found, playing with new (or old, seldom used) tools and techniques, and just making a controlled mess. I say controlled, but usually the only control I have is the comfort zones of familiar and favourite colours, quotes or scriptures, and flowers.
I loved that I can use art journaling as a hidden creative process, one where I can be more vulnerable, make mistakes, make ugly pages, and not have to worry about anyone seeing it, because I hadn't really been sharing any of it.
But I was feeling like that was doing you all a disservice. This was a practice I loved SO much, that was a total different style of work of mine, but still with some of the same roots of all of my work. Deep jewel tones, punches of gold or yellow, hand lettering, and florals. If you know my old work, you'll know that these roots run deep. It's where this art business first came to life.
One aspect of my art journaling practice is collage. I often start my pages with some collage to break up the white page, but also as some final elements as the last steps of making a spread (a spread is an open 2 pages of art all created into one piece). I loved using old sketches and painted elements of my stash, cut them up and glue them down. Or I would make these pieces specifically for whatever page I was creating.
And then I had a revelation!
I loved making these collage elements so much, that I had way more than I knew what to do with. I know some of you had enjoyed watching me making them over on Instagram ,so I thought I'd make a few more, bundle them up with some painted and stained and marked papers of assorted textures, and make them available for you and your practice, however you want to collage them! Click below to see the couple of bundles I currently have available, and get to making!
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