Anti-Journal Week 3

((I typed out an entire blog post and this stupid f'n site DELETED the entire thing. GRRRR!))

It was difficult for me to decide what to post tonight because I have about 4 blog posts that I need to type out and get on here. I decided to start with what is relatively the beginning and get that out of the way. LOL (And, yes, I am just as bad at journaling with pen and paper as I am at this. I can just type way faster than I can write so this is actually easier.)

First of all, Kids Clothes Week was an EPIC fail for me. I was not feeling well for most of the week, so I managed to get a grand total of 1 thing finished. I am, however, currently participating in the Stash Game over at Sewing Mamas and am working my way toward my goal of 200 yards of fabric GONE by the end of this year. But more on that later. :D

Week 3's Anti-Journal was difficult for me. Sarah, the Wonderous Wonderstrumpet of Wonderstrange, posted a Master List of prompts for us to choose from and anyone that really knows me knows that A) I am not super great at choosing for myself and 2) I do not respond to change well. However, in the spirit of this year of Adventures, I decided to embrace it and just go for it. Sarah's Chronicles journal spread for Week 3 is awesome. And she posted a video about making journals that's worth a watch. ;)

Week 3's Anti-Journal


I really like creating these multiple page journal spreads. It lets me to include more that what the normal 2 facing pages would allow for.


Inside that envelope is ephemera from the trip to Tennessee that the girls and I took last year on Spring Break.


Two more drawings from the 100 Things to Draw When You're Bored 2014 list. #15 Ninja Banana and #61 A Shark Ate My Homework. And a cute little smiley moon guy :D


For my artwork this week, I chose to create some Found Poetry. I used to do this kind of thing all the time. In fact, it's probably my favorite thing that I create. It's always dark, usually twisted, and soul cleansing.
The poem reads:

They call him Candyman murdering eater of souls
unwavering dead eyes and black gloved hand
slab of onyx on porcelain

white angel screaming
dancing through veins like a real ballerina
breathing with a hatchet blade stuck in the throat

tender white neck
lightly kissed on the forehead
agonizing sighs but I love you would shatter his skull

up all night
hearing bones crack screams peeling wallpaper
cry cry cry gushing tears bloodred on the carpet

Don't make me go back there
sit right here in the dark
spinning my broken shame in the moonlight



And I tried to take a picture of this cute Jane Austen card that I put in here, but it turned out all blurry. LOL

So, that's my week 3, and I'm really pretty pleased with it. As usual, following thru and just going with things in the spirit of adventure has taught me a lot this week. About myself and what I can accomplish when I follow thru. :D

((The first f'n post was better. I HATE this thing right now.))

Anti-Journal Week 2

Yes, I realize that the second week is not yet over. However, I'm pretty sure that my spread for this week is complete. So I'm posting this now.
This week went a lot easier than last week. Trust me. Last week there was a lot of sitting and staring out the window while I tried to think of shit to add to the book. This week, much less sitting. Everything seemed to flow more smoothly and it was less of a struggle to come up with stuff for the prompts. (I don't have a ton of photos on hand, so those photo prompts get skipped a lot. LOL)
When Sarah (the WonderStrumpet of Wonderstrange) listed our prompts for the Chronicles Journal project it kinda made me cringe a little bit.

•Main Spread: Check out some art/mixed media/technique videos on YouTube and try one out.
•Journaling: Write about your experience with that technique, what you learned, what you want to learn, how you can apply it, etc.
•Photography: Take a picture of something you love. Alternatively print out a picture of something you love.
•Journaling: Write down a quote that resonates with you, makes you laugh, makes you think, does something to you emotionally. It can be completely random and have absolutely no context.
•Art/Photography: Think about skills you want to acquire. Work on it, even if it’s ugly and weird.
•DOODLE. Use ink. Trust yourself.
•Destash: Use something you’ve had for a while/something you’re hoarding
•Attach any ephemera/mementos that are making you happyp
•Optional Journal52 prompt: Somewhere, A Simple Place
(Again, I copied these directly from Wonderstrange.)

I mean, first of all, the whole watch a YouTube video on a new art technique and then try it out? Seriously? I'm kinda intimidated by the whole art video on YouTube thing. Then to write about the experience (more writing - sigh - ). And DOODLING. With INK! No f'n way! The ephemera/mementos part is cool because I always have a ton of shit lying around waiting for me to do something with it. And I can always stand a good destash. :D
But I hauled out the book anyway and got to work. Intimidation be damned.
The YouTube video I chose to watch was by Agnes Cecile (well, I watched several, but the one's I watched the most were by her). If you haven't watched any of her videos, I would strongly suggest doing so. The woman is an amazing artist and her style of painting is just so beautiful and so powerful. It is definitely unique and I really like it.

Again, more pages and tags and tape and stickers and a pocket stuffed with ephemera and a painting from 4 years ago and all kinds of added ness-y-ness. :D

This is one of the pages with all of it's additions completely folded out. It has the quotes and a painting and stuff taped down. And #5 on the 100 Things to Draw When You're Bored list. World's Worst Tattoo. Say hello to the mascot for the Cracatoah Donkeys - The Bearded Donkey. LOL





(Yes, it has been pointed out to me that donkey hair stands straight up, like a zebra. I know this. Hello! World's Worst Tattoo! Duh!)

The main part of my anti-journal this week was a free form watercolor. I've never done anything like this before. And, while I think that it turned out okay, I probably will not be doing it again. I just didn't really like it that much. I do, however, really like the Dymo tape sticker that the oldest girlchild made for me while she was volunteering this week. Sometimes she's so sweet.

#62 on the 100 things list is the Ideal Dessert. It's a Brownie Cheesecake A La Mode with chocolate chip cookie resting on a bed of hot fudge. :D I also managed to include a page with the suggested song lyrics from Week 1's prompts. It has my doodle on it. In ink, no less.

I almost managed to get the entire spread in one photo. It's just missing the sheet that has the 100 Things drawing on it (it would be one more page out on the right). I think that if I had stood on a chair I could have managed it. But, I didn't. So it's not there. LOL






Well, that's it for this week's Anti-Journal. Apparently, it was a long, drawn out explanation. Hope that I haven't put anyone to sleep. :D If you want to join in the Chronicles Journal project (or any of the other fun stuff going on) just head over to Wonderstrange and check it out. The more the merrier!

Anti-Journal Week 1

Okay, so for those of you that remember from this post I had decided to join in on the Art Journaling with the Anti-Journaler project. And, being a bit of an Anti-Journaler myself, I was slightly less enthusiastic about the way it would turn out. But, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it 1000% (or as much as I could spare at the time because I have been busy.) What I have ended up with is kind of a weird cross between an art journal and a scrapbook, and I am LOVING it.
For Week 1 Sarah (the WonderStrumpet herself) listed the following prompts/challenges -

•Main spread: Illustrate/collage/paint/otherwise artify something funny that you saw or read.
•Photography: When you catch yourself rolling your eyes at yourself, take a picture of that thing you’re doing – write a little explanation when you paste the picture in.
•Art/Photography/Journaling: Think of the most memorable thing that happened this week. If you have a picture of it, paste it in. If you can draw it, draw it. If you just want to write about it, do that!
•Journaling: List at least three things you accomplished this week.
•Journaling: What is your favorite song right now?
•Journaling: What are you excited about?
•Attach any momentos or ephemera that has caught your attention
•Destash: If you find yourself hoarding a supply, use it!
•Optional: Journal52 prompt: Up, up, and away
(I pulled these directly from the post on Wonderstrange)

Again, not being much of a journaler, I thought to myself 'Great, I'm supposed to write out a bunch of shit. (eyeroll) This will go well.' But, I decided to just roll with it and see what happened.
And I'm glad I did because I am so happy with the results.

I started out with this weird little painting in a watercolor field book. The paper is a lovely, white linen that is very highly textured. I love the edges of the pages, but the paper doesn't really hold up too well. Anyway, I thought at one time I *might* start a journal, but never did anything with it beyond this one painting (which wasn't all that super impressive. LOL) I've removed several of the pages to use for other projects (one of which I will be blogging about shortly), and now the book is barely hanging on. I thought it would be perfect for this project though.

I then decided to grab some pencils and some papers and some pens and some markers and some stickers and some tape and some stamps and a bunch of other stuff and turn it into this. :D (IDK why that f'n picture is so ginormous. Whatevs!) There's writing under all that stuff, I promise. I just covered it up with the added bits.

In addition to all the paper stuff and lists that I taped in there, I also defaced the original painting a little bit. The page off to the side is one that I taped to the side of the painting so that I could add more pages to the spread (I just added a couple to the one this week. Next week, I add waaaaaay more. LOL)

I also started the 100 Things to Draw When You're Bored in there as well (yes, I know, I don't exactly draw like a pro. I don't really care.) I have #1 - Inanimate Objects in Glasses twice. One time with things like a refrigerator with glasses and toilet with glasses. The second time I put things like a hot wheels car inside of a glass. And the other thing I drew when I was bored was #29 - Grumpy Moon.
(And, yes, I blurred out that page on purpose. Hey, it's my journal and some stuff is just for me.)

This is the final spread with all of the additions - pages, tags, papers, a pocket, etc. It all folds up together nicely and lays neat inside the book. I did the same thing with this week's spread (and included even more stuff) and it all still lays just as nicely. When the oldest girlchild looked at it she was dutifully impressed by my scrapbook-y/journal-y ness.

Anyway, that's Week 1 of my Anti-Journal. If you want to join in, you can find info about the whole thing over at Wonderstrange. There's some pretty awesome stuff going on over there. And there are Mr Linky's Magic Widgets as well. :D

Patience Grasshopper

Oddly enough, I have actually been doing stuff. In fact, I have been really busy. I've been making plans and working on projects and getting things started.
So why does it feel like I am not accomplishing much of anything?

I think that everyone feels this way at some point in time. I have this huge list of things that I have planned out for my year, some projects will literally take the entire year to adventure thru, and I am working on several different things as we speak. I want to see the results of my planning and my working, but they are just not there yet. I am finding that sometimes adventuring requires patience. LOL

One of the year long projects I'm working on that I'm pretty dang excited about is 50 Canvases in 2014 For those of you that suck at math (like me :D) it breaks down to roughly 1 complete painting per week. Which is a fairly big deal for me 'cuz I haven't really painted a whole lot in the past several years and I have serious issues with commitment, so we'll see how it goes.
Also, because I totally love the women of Wonderstrange, I am going to attempt The Anti-Journal with Sarah. Again, not being a commitment oriented kind of person, I'm a little apprehensive about it. I am, however, totally committed to throwing myself into it 1000% and crashing and burning if that is what occurs. Hurray for the adventure!
I thought I might join in on the 100 Things to Draw When You're Bored 2014 edition but I'm not really talented in the drawing department. Perhaps if I am either really bored or really desperate I might start. Rest assured that, if I do officially add that to my plate, I will not be subjecting anyone's eyes to the trauma of viewing my doodles. LOL
I'm also signed up for a heART swap for Valentines over at MotherHenna. I've participated in artist collaborations over there before and they are so much fun. I actually have my 20 cards nearly finished and will be blogging about them shortly. I am super excited to see what the other participants have come up with. I really miss exchanging art with others, and it has been really fun to create something with heART.

On the non-art side of things (well, I guess it's still art, just a different type LOL), I am participating in Kids Clothes Week Jan 27th thru Feb 3rd. I know that it is supposed to be for the Winter session, but the girlchildren are not in need of any Winter clothing at this time. So, I'm going to sew for Spring/Summer because that is what they need. The youngest girlchild will likely end up with the majority of the items because she is the one that needs the most. The oldest will get some stuff, but not nearly as much because her closet is cram packed already.
I've also set myself up with the goal of sewing thru (or selling/giving away) a minimum of 200 yards of fabric this year. While it may seem like a ridiculously astronomical amount of fabric, I can assure you that I have plenty in my stash to complete that goal (and then some.) Every year I say that I want to sew more and I want to get my fabric under control (I'll post a picture of my stash later for reference). But I never manage to actually do it. I sew and I sew and I sew, but I also buy and I buy and I buy. So, less buying, more sewing (not no buying because that would just be too much to deal with. LOL)
There is also an 'UpCycle' contest over at SewingMamas that I have tentatively signed up for. I have no idea what I will be making for that, but it is due the 29th. I need to figure it out quickly so I can get started and finished and submitted. Especially with everything else that I'm already doing.

Then there's the list of books I want to read and recipes I want to try and a couple of other things that I am still fleshing out.

So, I have been busy. I'm not getting much completed, but I am working my ass off. And it actually feels pretty good. I think I kinda like it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I do.