Notes from ShellyCentral

at least it's something

I accidentally cleaned off my art table while I was on the phone the other day. Yesterday I made myself sit down at it. I pulled out one old magazine and decided I'd make two pages with what I found in that magazine. It wasn't a real great magazine so I had to tear out anything that was a little interesting to me.

It was fun, and somehow having casual parameters like that makes it easier to do something. I might try it again.

Thank God it's Art Journal Friday

 

I just made an art journal post with too many pictures, but since it's Friday I thought I'd show you what I did in the garage this morning...

Those orange lines are from the lighting I think. They're not there in the journal.

This is my stamp of the Venus of Willendorf, a four inch statue made about 23 thousand years ago.  I colored them in with water color pencils and then pained them in with water. Except the second from the left, I left it so you could see the difference.

The outside lines are made with a sharpie paint pen. The insides are a couple colors of water color crayons, painted with water.

I still feel bad when I remember Alan pointing out he's not on this list.

I doodled, then colored it in with hilighters.

The edge of my journal.

Yes, it is past my bedtime.

I just signed back up with Julie Balzer's Art Journal Every Day project. I was doing it at the beginning of the year, and then I got all wrapped up about how my journals *looked* instead of how it felt to put things in to it. Or what I was putting into it. But I've had a little while to get myself back in focus and I'm feeling like trying it again. I've been arting in the mornings since graduation was over and I'm enjoying it. I'm going to try it for the month of June. Julie says even 10 minutes works. It's got to be easier than vlogging every day, right?

Here's what's been going on in the garage lately:

This is my favorite journal page. Of course there aren't words on it yet.

 

(It's this girl I like so much.)

I like my pages so much better before I put words on them

than after.

I often leave them unfinished because I'm afraid to do any more and "mess them up". Isn't that the silliest thing ever? Mess them up from what? They're my journal pages, they are what they are. They're for the doing of them. They can not be messed up.

More to come. Check back on Fridays for more.

Vlog 20 - Peek in my journal

I've uploaded today's vlog today! It's a peek inside my journal...

From my journal...

With so much stuff going on in the next few weeks, I'm starting to feel a little wonky and disregulated. This evening I played doctor to myself and had myself write up a little care plan. Here it is. I think I did a great job.

And then I was having so much fun taking pictures of my journal I took a few more.

No Frills Prompt 17: Layers

Tonight I had some free time and wanted to do something arty in my journal. I had zero idea what. So of course I was surfing the web . Lucky for me I clicked on Tammy's blog Daisy Yellow. She had a "No Frills Prompt" that seemed good to me - layering.

I've been wanting to get back to cutting/tearing paper and sticking it down in my journal and this, "♦ experiment with layers in your art journal ~ glue down a few papers, gesso over them with a brush, glue another layer, more gesso, build up 4-6 layers." seemed great. Except I'm trying to not use anything liquid, so I just layered a bunch of magazine tear outs with scotch tape.

I like the tape. It's very unprofessional and amateur, but you know I kind of like that. And I like the layers it adds. And yes, I saw it in Rosie O'Donnell's magazine a long time ago. So?

I think it turned out to be a kind of self portrait, but doesn't everything.

Tonight's Journal Entry

I want to be creative and fun and free.
But so often I'm just not.

Art Journal Every Day

I'm doing Art Journal Every Day again, and these pages are what I've done recently. Sometimes it's a bit of writing, or an image pasted in. Sometimes it's making decorations with pens and markers. One day it was collaging up some magazine pages...

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

I cleaned my art table. That means it looks a lot less interesting.

 

The white binder is full of our plans for Europe. There's the ever present Disney book. A half empty container of pens, loose pens, pens in a cup (30 was quite some number of years ago) and the container of sharpies, copics and white pens. Oh and some scissors. Discarded daily prompts. And of course the journal. I wrote "Why do you always limit yourself Shelly? All all good things to come to you."

This journal post comes to you by way of "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday". See other posts by clicking on the icon below.

Art Journal Friday

Thank you for the motivation, Julie Balzer!

It's the last week of January. Color me very glad. One more month of winter over, one month closer to warmer weather. This week I'm sharing 3 pages from my journal.

This page isn't necessarily done. I kind of want to go back with a white pen and do something, but I don't know what. But it's mostly done. If I don't do anything else I'm fine with this page. I love that ancient guy with a whole in his eye.

This is a halfway done page. I've laid down the foundations. I've drawn the frame work. I'd decorated some and I've started writing. I don't really dig it, but it's still too early to tell how it's going to turn out. I might end up liking it when I'm done.

And here's a fresh page. It has color, a frame, and an image. It's all ready to go and all about the potential. I like almost all pages when they're at this stage. Anything could happen.