Introducing 2016.

As far as this blog goes, and really just with art in general, this year has been a bit of a fail. I've moved a little bit into some digital art experimentation and did a lot of writing, but that's been about the extent of my creative endeavors.

If I'm being completely honest with you, I kind of forgot that this blog even existed.

So I find it slightly crazy that I find it right before the beginning of the new year. I'm not sure exactly what prompted it, but a few days ago my mind focused itself back on art. Personally, I'm the type of person that works in phases - certain things interest me for long periods of time, before I take a break and come back later.

This year was apparently my break from physical art media, but I'm back now. I haven't done a whole lot when it comes to actually pulling myself back into art, but I will be soon.

Part of me wants to wait until the new year starts to actually post anything art related, since it would be more of a rounded out year. But not only do I not want to lose my motivation, I also feel the desire to share once more.

We'll see what happens in the long run, but I'm looking forward to a new year of creative experimentation - I hope you'll join me. In later days, I'll probably go a bit more in depth as to what I expect to touch on/jump into during the coming weeks and months, once I know it myself. For now, I just wanted to make a note, to hold myself responsible.

You'll be hearing from me very soon.

January 4+5, 2015: More Journal Pages

Hey everyone, I'm back with a couple more day's worth of creativity!

Today's post is an excellent example of how sometimes when you're in the process of making things daily, you will like certain pieces more than other. This journal page is a good example of something I really enjoy. 

There's actually a bit more depth to it than you can really see, as I got to a point where I painted over almost everything with white paint. In certain areas I pulled the color back up to reveal some of the original background, but for the most part it was entirely redone.

I like the bright colors of this page, and how they don't really merge together as much as some of my other pages do. Each color stands on it's own, and though there is a bit of blending, it's nothing too extreme. Personally I also enjoy the geometric shapes this page has as a part of it- hearts and circles are pretty much my favorite things to use.

Speaking of the heart, there's actually a funny story about that. I was looking at my page, using the prompt intuition. There was some tissue paper next to me, and I grabbed it thinking I wanted to collage it onto the page. When I ripped a piece off, it was in the shape of the heart, and I just went with it. Thus incorporating the prompt even further.

For me, this page isn't quite as enjoyable as the previous one. I don't think it looks terrible, but there's just something about it that bothers me. The prompt I used was numbers, and there are several ways that I incorporated that.

One, I used some number stamps in the background. The mustard color is currently my favorite color, and I'm currently looking for more combinations that I can experiment with it in. Then, I used a stencil and some white paint to get more numbers of a different style. Then I used the same stamps in a different color (red, if it isn't obvious), to put the '2015' title.

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of this page, I do really enjoy this one section. I'm not sure what it is, but there's a possibility that it's the splatters. They were completely unintentional, created when I was trying to dissolve the pastels that the borders were made with. I got too much water on my brush and flung it to the side.

There's a possibility that I'll continue work on this page in the future, masking off the areas that I enjoy and working on top of it. We'll see what happens.

January 1-3, 2015: Journal Pages

Hello, and welcome to my first post of the year!

As I mentioned previously, I'm hoping to post on here daily, or at least as close to daily as possible. With New Year's Day and my birthday (the 2nd), I haven't gotten around to posting until now. However, despite the busyness, I have managed to work on my art journal on every day. Thus, I do have some things to share.

I would like to start us off by addressing my journal itself. I'm a big fan of reusing/altering objects and books if at all possible, and that's just what I have been doing. The base for my first art journal of 2015 is a clothing catalogue I was sent in the mail, and I've simply been working on top of the pages.

A lot of people suggest gluing pages together, or using gesso on top of them before beginning. The purpose of this is to thicken the pages into something more substantial. I've found that, with my work, the layers of paint, stamping, collage, and whatever else I decide to do, the pages thicken themselves. Feel free to do what works best for you.

For the first day of the year, I did what only seemed natural and worked on the cover of my brand new journal. At first, I was extremely conflicted. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to be inspired by, which, at least for me, makes it almost impossible for me to accomplish anything.

However, about halfway through the day, my mind wandered back to the dictionary word of the day I had received earlier on. Incunabula- the earliest stages or traces of anything:

That word was beyond inspiring to me for several reasons, the most obvious of which being that it was the beginning of the year. In addition to that, it was also the beginning of a new journal. The combination of the two made it almost impossible to ignore, and this page spawned from that single word.

The circular section in the lower right is my favorite portion of the page. I achieved this result only after many layers of tape and collage for texture, multiple colors of paint, pastels, stenciling, stamping, and probably a few more things that I can't remember at the time. 

My page for the second of January, unlike the one from the first, was based on a prompt. It was a single word prompt, only the word 'bloom'. The instant I thought of the word, the image on the page came to my head. When I think of the word 'bloom', I imagine something that is bursting out from an internal point.

It took me a bit of working with different paints and doodles, even on the page itself, but I eventually managed to get the idea out of my head and onto paper. 

Finally, we get to today's page. For this page, I actually drew my inspiration from several different prompt sources. 'Pathways' and 'Your Hand'. In addition, I decided that I wanted to incorporate all of the above colors of paint, even though they didn't necessarily go together. My reasoning for that was solely that I had gone to Michael's and got all of them for 51 cents apiece. 

For the 'pathways' prompt, I did several different things. First and most noticeably, the text was inspired by this word. I don't know how I came up with the words, but they just came to me and I decided to type them up on my typewriter and put them on the page. Secondly, the boxes were somewhat inspired by the theme. 

There were also several ways I was inspired by the hand prompt. First, I was only planning on incorporating it by doing my painting with my fingers. The majority of the painting was done in that manner, but I also added on to that by tracing my fingers onto the top and bottom of the page, creating the scalloped edge. 

That about wraps up my art for the past three days! I've had a lot of fun working on these things, and am definitely looking forward to sharing more in the future!

An Introduction

Before I introduce this blog, I would like to discuss my own personal history with art (specifically art journaling/mixed media, which is what this blog will revolve around), and my purposes for creating this blog.

I'm not new to art journaling by a long shot. There has always been some element of art to my life, and it's difficult for me to look at anything without seeing some sort of creative endeavor I could begin. However, I haven't legitimately done anything with mixed media in a good long while. 

The past few weeks have been the exception to that, as I've been gradually trying to get myself back into the habit of creating something every day. During my hiatus from art journaling, I was writing. Fiction writing is something that I also enjoy (science fiction is my specialty, though I'm also a fan of fantasy), and as difficult as it might be, I would like to continue my habit of writing as well. 

It's a lot to juggle, no doubt. In addition to that, I'm also in the middle of my Senior year of high school, and am currently studying for my driver's permit. As difficult as it may be, I'm more than willing to get the attempt out there. In the past, sharing my art with people has helped me to keep my motivation up, and I'm hoping the same thing will still be relevant.

Now, without further ado, I would like to introduce this blog in particular. 

One of my favorite things to do in my art is experiment. The more I work on something, the more ideas I get. Sometimes those ideas won't be used on the specific thing I'm writing/painting/whatever. However, I collect them in the back of my head, and eventually get around to using them. This happens no matter what creative thing I'm working on. 

If I'm writing something, a lot of times I'll get ideas for entirely different books while I'm in the process of doing so. If I'm working on a mixed media piece, whether it be a journal, a canvas, or a sheet of paper, I'll get ideas for techniques I could try. 

In essence, this blog is going to be used for documenting what I do with those ideas. I'll be posting pictures of my artwork, and possibly setting up areas where people can add links to their own work, whether it be inspired what I create or not. I'll also be updating with progress on my writing near the end of my posts (which I'm hoping will be daily). These will probably just be word counts, and a summary of what I wrote on that day, as I still want to keep my fiction works private, in case I want to try to publish them someday. 

I'm looking forward to sharing my projects, and I hope you will join me in this journey!