A Smattering of Pages (Week of 2/19/2017)

Last week, I posted on Sunday, today I'm posting on Saturday. I'm not sure where the routine is going to fall, but I finished a ton of pages this week (even more than I'm going to show in this post), so I figured I'd write this post up before it got out of hand.

The first bit I have to share with you is actually only a piece of a page. I was wrestling with this page for weeks, adding here and there, doodling and painting over and doodling again. I finally think that I've gotten it to a place where I'm happy to at least leave it alone, and this little bit of journaling and the title feel extremely accurate right about now.

The next page is a lot brighter than the last one, and I used a shimmery blue paint that I've been hoarding practically since I got it. In the end, I'm glad that I did because I think it adds an extra element of interest to the page.

With the title and journaling of this page, my secret (or not so secret) emo self is making an appearance. This is also a continuation of the page with tissue paper laid down from this post.

Now here's something a little new, at least for this journal; faces. I didn't know if I wanted to create more mixed media faces in this journal or not, despite the fact that I've done it a lot in the past. However, this just sort of happened, and I'm more than glad that it did. I love the way the two pages of this spread sort of contrast but blend into each other at the same time.

In the first photo, you can see some of the details of the left hand page. I don't use colored pencils in my art journals a lot, but I wanted to see what Crayola pencils were like to work with on top of acrylic paint. As it turns out, the result is a lot of fun. With this face, I also had a lot of fun just trying to relax about proportions of the face - it's off and I know it. I'm okay with that.

In the second photo, there is a close up of the right hand page. I've been wrestling with this page for a long while as well, and I love the place I finally managed to get it to. I didn't mean to make a point when I started creating this page, but it seemed to have happened regardless. This also inspired (ever so vaguely) a watercolor piece, and I feel like this page might evolve into yet another finished piece. We'll see.

Now, this may be my favorite (or one of my favorite) pages in this journal thus far. I like the graphic nature of it, I think it's bold, and I like the face that I drew (I used a ballpoint pen). I also love the meaning behind this page.

All of that texture in the background? That was my handwriting. I was having a really tough time when I created this page, and I felt like all of my nerves were ON. I just wrote and wrote and wrote, all about how I was feeling, and by the time I had finished writing, I felt a whole lot better. These are the times that I regret the break I took from art journaling - it really is a form of stress relief for me.

The final page I'm going to leave you all with today is yet another one of my favorites. I knew that I wanted to do some wonky little houses, and I've set some goals for myself as far as using up the supplies I have before buying more. As a result, I decided to cut out bits of paper to collage down to create the shapes of the houses and the moon.

This is done in a super quirky style, and was in no way meant to be realistic. The doodling was done with Sharpie, so fine detail went out the window. It was nice to not have to worry about it, and I love the way the page turned out in the end!

I hope you all enjoyed seeing what I've been up to this week, and I'll see you next time!